


Lighter than the Sun

by foolhardy



Category: Star Trek
Genre: DieKodosDie, Graphic depictions of hunger, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Abuse, Tarsus IV, Touch-Starved, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Not-Coping Mechanisms, Vulcan Science Academy (Star Trek), Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-30
Updated: 2019-02-25
Packaged: 2019-05-15 22:19:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14799044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foolhardy/pseuds/foolhardy
Summary: JT has survived Tarsus IV, Starfleet has found them homes, but JT isn't going. He has plans. He is going to make sure famines are a thing of the past. Driven by fear and nightmares JT puts himself on a path to greatness. He will put everything he has into this dream.





	1. Chapter 1

Escape from authority - thievery - Martians - more illegal actions - an opportunity to advance knowledge

 

They were not expected to be a flight risk. Which is why he could do it. He knew he was lucky in that. It helped that they thought he was one Tyler Leighton, the fuss they would kick up over the Kelvin Baby was simply not worth it. So Thomas had supported his claim, and the crew of the USS Intrepid had been far far too distracted to wonder why they didn't look much alike. Or perhaps the hungry eyes and taught skin over bone was all they saw when they looked at JT and his children. So JT had taken advantage. They did not see him, they saw a starved waif too sick and weak to cause trouble. He was careful not to let on that, better fed than he'd been in weeks, JT was more than capable of trouble.

They had all been interviewed, separately. All the children without parents got an extra interview. Starfleet had rescued over six hundred people in all and were struggling to place the intact families, let alone the orphans. JT's children were just sixteen of these. 

He would have to make sure they went to good homes. He knew he couldn't take them all with him. Starfleet might let a few of them escape but would not forget seventeen disappearances. So JT would ensure that proper care was taken of his children. Fortunately he had access to a powerful server. The USS Intrepid. 

It was ridiculously easy to see the nurses logging in to the display computer. So each night JT would slip over to the display and log in. He had to dart back to his bed every half hour when the nurse on night duty came around to check the incessant beeping of the instruments all the Survivors were attached to. The beeping was more irritating than the nurses though. Finding the names of the relatives or foster homes his children were slated for was simple enough. The data wasn't even well protected. He had to resist an urge to improvise more firewalls, but he was out of practice and it would raise alarms. In between the nurse patrol JT tried to look into these adults. The regular interruptions by the nurses grew more frustrating, he should be grateful for the care. He wasn't. The information he could find on the adults who would be guardians for his children was sparse and inconclusive. The Federation wouldn't give children to people with records, but lack of an official record did not make a person an appropriate caregiver. JT would know. So he looked for the habits such people had, JT was familiar with these too. Yet there was not nearly enough data for JT to be certain. 

This uncertainty posed a problem. His sixteen children were being spread across the galaxy. The greatest bloc, seven, were staying on Terra, but that left nine of them as far flung as Planet Q and Rakosa V. Unable to spin a satisfactory solution JT drew Thomas and Amy quietly aside. They were the closest to him in age. Thomas was steady and meticulous, Amy was more like JT but had anger instead of guilt. When JT had been getting food, Thomas had carefully tried local plants, he'd found five that were human-safe. It had helped when JT no longer had access to Kodos' food stores. Then Amy had joined JT on more dangerous raids for food. It was how they lost 'Leazar, those raids. 

JT explained who each of them would be sent to. Tom was going to live with a second cousin he had met twice on Planet Q and Amy was being fostered on Terra. JT was meant to be going with Thomas as his brother Tyler. He did not mean to stick around for that to happen. He didn't look nearly enough like Thomas or the dead Tyler and it couldn't last. 

Curled up in a knot on Thomas' bed they whispered their plans. They all had dreams beyond the next meal now and the three of them worked them out in hushed voices. First was how to look out for the other fourteen children. Amy, staying on Terra with a foster family, was the logical choice to keep in contact with the six others also slated to live on Terra. It took Thomas a bit of convincing but he was certain that he could keep in touch with all eight other children who like him, would be spread across Terran colonies. Established ones. Not new ones like Tarsus IV. JT would stay in touch with Thomas and Amy. He was also to watch for signs of abuse, it went unspoken, but all of them knew JT would be watching over his children. 

To properly care for his children JT could not have an adult monitoring his activities, and he could not be sent back to his uncle. He had the resources, chips stolen from Kodo's computers. Like a proper tyrant Kodos had insisted on controlling everything about his people, including their bank records. JT would be putting whatever this money totalled into his children, it would keep him off the streets too. And he could earn money in other ways if he needed.

With the care of his children seen to JT asked if they knew what they would be doing. Thomas was already certain. He was set on going into Agri-Science empirical research would suit him and there was nothing he was more passionate about than ensuring food supplies. JT agreed that this was also where he had been hoping to make a difference. Make it so no more children were put through a Tarsus. Amy was conflicted. Her first thought was of getting into politics to make sure there were the checks and balances in place to bring rescue sooner and her second was to go into healthcare so she could rescue people directly. Thomas thought politics would be better as it was further reaching. JT told the eighteen year old that she need not stick to a single career. 

Amy and JT were sent back to their own beds when the USS Intrepid dimmed the lights in the makeshift ward. Tomorrow the three of them would tell the other children what would happen and how to stay in contact. The young ones wouldn't understand why they would be sent off to be raised by strangers, but this was not a battle JT could win. Not outright. They would have to sneak around the edges again. Let Starfleet think they would placidly let their lives be controlled and put everything in place so they could leave for their own lives whenever they chose.

\---

So when they were shipped down in shuttles JT had already said his goodbyes to his children. In the chaos of the Terran starport JT reeled back from the heaving mass of people. The other Survivors and even the Villagers had all stopped as well. It was a shock to see the crowds. It was horrible to recall that last crowd, of four thousand souls. JT shook himself and thought of his plan. He had to learn about crops and make sure this could not happen again. So with the other ex-Tarsus he followed the officer assigned to them and they stepped into the seething masses. 

It was the simplest thing to step away from their group and let the crowd take him. The sensation of people pressing around him was no longer familiar, but he did remember how once he'd been able to use crowds. They had been comfortable and safe, a means of escape. Now they made him dizzy and breathless. He was well practiced at pick-pocketing though, better than he'd been before Tarsus. 

The credits went to an automated ticket booth and he was on the next flight to Mars. 

The stale smelling Short-Range had uncomfortable seats but as JT watched Terra disappear he finally felt free. From the chatter of a tour group JT learnt inane facts about his destination. He was headed to the domed city of Eurydike on the western edge of Valles Marineris, a mining city settled for the varied mining around the Tharsis Bulge. Apparently four cities had been lost after terraforming reactivated the volcanic activity in the area and Eurydike was built as close as the Terran government would allow civilians to live. What did grab JT's attention was the presence of a prestigious mining university. Not exactly the focus he was after, but surely they could not only have lectures on volcanoes. 

They did not. Arriving from Terra there were no customs lines so JT followed the noisy tour group to their first stop at Eurydike Uni. After following several likely looking youths JT and found himself in the library. They had courses on everything. Eurydike's strengths lay in geology and mining but with the poetry department a not too distant third. JT was more interested on the well-reviewed course in soil dynamics. Soil surely was a huge part of Agri-science, but he couldn't simply turn up if he wanted to complete the course. This was a little more difficult. 

He had some idea of what he would need to do and the rest, well it would follow logically. He could not be Tyler - escaped Tarsus survivor. Who was meant to be heading to Planet Q with Thomas. But neither could he be a Kirk, returning to the care of his Uncle was something to be avoided at every cost. So he would have to be someone else, and have enough paperwork to prove he really was this person. He had unknowingly laid the groundwork back on Tarsus. The stolen chips from Kodos' computer system. He'd hoped to use them in proving his guilt when this came to trial. That was when he was still expecting rescue before it was too late, still hoping. He still had those credit chips, tucked into the kit bag Starfleet had issued each of them. 

Kodos had liked to know and control everything about his people, this meant he had all sorts of useful details. Like bank ident information. JT had not dared touch this while on the Starfleet vessel. Now he did. He brought out the chips and plugged them in. He didn't need to hack through Kodos' firewalls, he knew the password. Kodos liked to share. JT knew from his Winona's rare stories that Starfleet and the Federation took a while to move on declaring people dead and securing their assets to be bequeathed. So he set up two trust funds putting Thomas as the beneficiary of one and Amy of the other. Then he began bouncing cash through the set-up he had made to keep uncle Frank away from his own bank. Not the one Winona dropped her salary in, the one JT had set up to keep his pocket money in. Sam had taken him to do it after JT had learned about banks in class. Frank had drained it for the petty cash only weeks later. JT had acted to secure against Frank with the pure fury of an indignant child, throwing his efforts into researching how to keep money safe. 

Now he used that knowledge to cash in from Kodos' Dogs and the dead Villagers. He was going to leave the money of those executed and those who had not survived, but morality would not save his children. He took that money too. Not all of it, but enough and all of it he channelled through Kodos' accounts first. 

Half went to the two trust funds, the rest he spread around accounts and investments. He sent Amy and Thomas a message with how to access the trust funds and explained how they were set up to support the education and lives of his children. He had set up the investments and other accounts under the uninspired name of Tiber Riley. He made Tiber months older than he was and so the newly fifteen year old began applications to the Soil Science course. He stayed late into the night cycle at the library, still on ship time and with endless loose ends to tie up. 

Tiber used the backdoor he had left in the USS Intrepid to find a suitable family to attach himself to. It would be more realistic to have a broken home so he found a man already in the penal system with a history of domestic and other violence, now Tiber had a father. There was conveniently a sister too, on a mining ship over Barradas III nicely isolated from news of her estranged imprisoned brother and his new son. Tiber forged guardianship papers and edited a couple of pictures of him with his new aunt. He put her name on his applications and made an email account for her. For the history of his birth mother he found a Riley who had lived and died on Eurydike, she would do for a cursory background check. Tiber was even satisfied that she had blond hair. She had two remaining relatives an aging father and a half-brother through her mother. The aged relative was easy, Tiber had a few pictures of him, his new mother and grandfather edited together. A blonde haired mother, a blue eyed grandfather, named Tyler, how very neat, he could be named after the aging man. That is what he would tell people in any case. 

With a family in place to absorb scrutiny Tiber send his application forms. Along with these he sent beautifully written letter from his new aunt asking the board to consider Tiber's application despite his youth. There was his academic record to straighten out. 

His own was spotty and it seemed somewhat more immoral to fudge his grades than say stealing money from people who had supported a tyrant. So he compromised. Eurydike had several excellent schools and many more run of the mill ones. Tiber had his history jump around these, never quite being expelled or gaining a black mark, but obviously showing something was up. He made his grades as near to what he had been getting those first months on Tarsus, but he made sure to have only just have completed each year, being apparently pulled out and absent for several tests. These he correlated with teachers' notes about suspected abuse, angry words from his father and a single hospital visit. He made this go back all the way to when his own old injuries started. Then he improved things. Within a month of his father's imprisonment and his aunt taking full guardianship his grades were steady and as brilliant as everything had first seemed on Tarsus.

\---

Eurydike had a little over five and a half million people. Finding single room apartment close to the uni was easy, renting it in his aunts name was a little more difficult, but Tiber managed. He had napped on the university campus, waking to the refracted light through the dome. For the next week Tiber filled in his time shoring up his background and waiting for the uni administration to contact him. When they did it was to ask for an in-person interview with Tiber. The email, directed to his aunt, indicated both of them would be welcome. Tiber carefully implied that he was, in his aunt's opinion, very keen to prove that he could do this without her.

So he turned up to the interview neatly dressed and even appropriately nervous. Albeit not for the reasons his new identity should be. Though, with a father like he had gained it wouldn't be too surprising that meeting adult males was distressing. With this analysis running in his mind Tiber was ushered into an office that would be bright if it weren't for the clutter. Ms Davis gave him an automatically condescending smile, Tiber bristled and when she made an inane opening statement he jumped to the point.

"It is not typical that an applicant is interviewed." Blinking tinted irises at him Ms Davis nodded. She seemed to gather herself together and gave a firm agreement. "Am I too young to be accepted, if so please tell me and I will apply elsewhere. I have talked this through with my aunt and while she prefers that I stay in Eurydike if staying here will limit my education she will agree to my applying elsewhere." 

"Well no. We have taken students younger than fifteen before, but we like to ensure that our younger students are ready for university life." She hedged. Tiber waited, he could sit still and silent for hours when he needed. She broke first, moving her desk clutter about. "I am going to ask some personal questions," she trailed off, Tiber nodded. She wasn't a psychiatrist like the one he had spoken to on the USS Intrepid, Tiber guessed she had training as a councilor. The questions were many but he had prepared and was suitably awkward when avoiding explaining why his father was in prison. He managed to drum up smiles when talking of his aunt and began mimicking Thomas when asked to describe what career he wanted. Ms Davis was nodding along. The condescending edge to her smile had faded to be replaced with mixed pity and indulgence. Tiber's acceptance letter followed three days later. 

\---

One week in to three papers on Soil Sciences Tiber found he had an excess of time. He didn't socialise with the other students and they didn't know what to do with the child in their class. His flat was tiny and easy to keep neat. He had food for a month stored, a ready bag packed and spent his evenings fleshing out his fake background, messaging Amy and Thomas, and reviewing his classes. This last just reinforced what Hoshi had told him on Tarsus. Thinking of her words Tiber logged in to his uni profile and browsed his options. While it was true few of the courses were completely aligned with where he wanted to take his understanding of crop plants there were many that would complement it. 

So he sent an email to Ms Davis explaining that he had been talking with his aunt about how he was enjoying the Soil Science course but not feeling very challenged by it and would she mind if he added a few papers from some complementary courses. She would not. So armed with the approval of his academic adviser Tiber signed up for Genetics 101, Microbiomes, Sociology 103 and Level 1 Mathematics. 

The next weeks were better, his mind was busy absorbing the lectures and catching up on the ones that overlapped. He spent the evening on his PADD completing a correspondence course on Crop Science, Soil Management and Biology 101 at Deianeira university on Planet Q. With this and tracing his children Tiber was exhausted enough to sleep soundly for hours at a time. 

This pleasing pattern continued until his lecturer had in Mathematics had him do the course work for all three levels offered at Eurydike, and Tiber spend an invigorating week working through it. Apparently this started a trend, even Ms Davis got involved. Each week he was offered - with firm insistence that he refuse the moment he wanted to - the chance to complete all the internally tested work for a course. Thrilled with the option of speeding up his academic career Tiber jumped at each chance and with courses all but eliminated from his schedule each week found this turn less and less exhausting. 

Unfortunately when his brain was not occupied with new information it liked to replay events from the last three years. So to compensate he took more courses with both Eurydike and Deianeira University. 

He had only been at Eurydike for four months when he made a mistake, he mentioned one of his Deianeira courses to Ms Davis. Feeling it would be worse to cover this up when she could easily access his faked record, Tiber explained about taking courses in subjects more aligned with hid goals at a separate university. Ms Davis frowned and muttered and chewed on her stained lip, she did that when Tiber did something unexpected. 

She had sent him off leaving Tiber to worry over his actions and wonder if he should have spun the tale differently. 

Four days later Tiber was called to her office again. Ms Davis was still chewing the lip, though today it was stained a lurid blue to match her stained irises. She sat him down, she always insisted he should be seated when she spoke to him. Apparently she had contacted Deianeira University about his courses there and had been corresponding with a representative from that university. It took a while before she circled to the point. Ms Davis, several of the lecturers here and the representative from Deianeira Uni wanted him to apply for scholarships to prestigious science orientated universities across Federation space. Ms Davis insisted that Tiber must discuss this with his aunt before giving his reply. So Tiber dutifully agreed and left to write his aunt's enthusiastic response to this opportunity for her precious nephew.

It took four weeks to organise and another three weeks of being left in quiet rooms to complete examinations and essays for the myriad of scholarship applications. The replies came in a trickle. Ms Davis began to beam at him in a most unsettling way, not helped by her recent choice of yellow iris tint. Tiber tried to order his preferences for the acceptances he had been offered. Several were conditional and a few of the negative replies encouraged him to reapply when he had attained a greater age. Ms Davis found these last more offensive than the outright negatives, she did insist that he not choose until all the replies were in. So after almost seven months at Eurydike she finally sat down with him to argue through the pros and cons of the Universities that had offered him placement. 

She needn't have bothered, they both knew which one Tiber would be taking. It was not a common thing for the Vulcan Science Academy to offer placement to a human.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allergies - comparing red planets - a Vulcan welcome - house hunting

Allergies - comparing red planets - a Vulcan welcome - house hunting

 

Unsurprisingly hypoallergenic Tri-Ox was challenging to get a hold of. Tiber spent a frustrating three hours fine combing through his background before he dared go to the travel clinic in central Eurydike. Then he had to spend twenty minutes sitting in the dubious waiting room doubting his efforts, doubting the hygiene of his surroundings and dreading the possible physical assessment the physician might try. He didn't want people to touch him. He especially didn't want a physician to examine him. It had been bad enough on the USS Intrepid and they had had the very cutting edge of medical scanners. By the look of this place any exam would be mostly hands on.

The physician did want him to come back for a check-up, but with Ms Davis letter and the VSA scholarship to hand Tiber was able to wrangle a prescription for Hypoallergenic Tri-Ox. He spent a full hour inspecting the prescription software and two hours writing and debugging a program to write his own prescriptions. It was more unwieldly than he would like. Not fully assured his program would work, Tiber settled for altering the real prescription. This proved less cumbersome. He wrote out a sleek bit of code that would match his altered prescription to the database. As long as he didn't order anything too suspicious he be away laughing. With his prior research in mind Tiber made the changes. He increased the amount of Tri-Ox ordered and carefully added antihistamines and both of the antibiotics he knew wouldn't make his immune system try to murder him. Better to be prepared. Who knew what human-safe medicines would be available on Vulcan, the planet didn't boast a large human population. The drugs were hideously expensive especially the Tri-Ox, he vowed to used them all sparingly. 

Ms Davis, chuffed with her bragging rights, met him at the star-port. Tiber quickly pretended that his aunt had left only minutes earlier, but Ms Davis seemed oblivious. Declaring that she was going to miss her prodigy child Ms Davis began making alarming signals that she was going to hug him. Tiber was frantically trying to discourage such affections when he was saved by a departure announcement. It wasn't his, but he managed a credible show of concern, and Ms Davis was distracted with checking the time, and finding the boarding gate, and wondering how long the journey would take. This lead her into worries over the inhospitable conditions of Vulcan. Before the cycle could complete its return to gushing over the Vulcan Science Academy and Tiber himself, he made his exit. Not very smoothly, but he told her travelling made him anxious and that he was going to sit by the gate - where she was not permitted. Reluctant to give up the object of her pride Tiber hit on the inspired idea of having her convey his thanks to the mathematics lecturer who had started his accelerated path. Ms Davis was struck with the notion and made her own departure in improved spirits; flushed with the prospect of bragging over her dear prodigy child.

Tiber watched her go in unabashed relief. 

Safely behind security and seated by the gate he eyed the people around him and wondered if he should have stayed. Eurydike had proven an excellent stepping stone, but it had been a good university of itself and he had grown comfortable. He had found a pace which made him sleep sound and dreamless, and had been learning things. Just a base of knowledge but Hoshi had always believed in needing strong roots. Tiber agreed and also thought Hoshi's saying that morbidly ironic. Still, the VSA had a truly daunting reputation and, while they weren't known for their work in agriculture, he had been sent a course overview which was everything he and Thomas had dreamed.

All in all Tiber didn't think he would regret leaving for the VSA. He had been more than alarmed by the sudden interest news of his scholarship had engendered. It had been petrifying. The older students went from ignoring his existence to trying to make him drink or eat with them. And Tiber got that people ate together socially he really did, it just wasn't something he was okay with anymore. All the unnerving attention had definitely played a large part in the speed of his acceptance and the speed with which he'd tied up his flat and the other loose ends. 

There was also a small part, a quiet part, that wanted to go simply to prove he could. It was much smaller than the determination and the fear, but as he settled in the Long-Range and peered out the window he acknowledged it. Want for praise and vainglory. Tiber had thought those rotted out, but in the flood of admiration from students and teachers alike it had sprouted new leaves. It was almost automatic, to stomp on that new growth. Grind it under mental heel until it was a pulpy mess of disgust. He was satisfied. There was no room for selfish ambition on the path he had chosen. 

The Long-Range needed new stabilisers. It rocked and shuddered leaving Mars' gravity well, the few people in it silently tightened belts and gazed down at the vanishing planet. Tiber did not. He was looking in the direction of the window, but his mind was going over his provisions, Vuhlkansu directions and the syllabus he had already been pouring over. The first of these was part of his stream of consciousness and had been for years now, water, food, escape, how long these would last, how to defend them. The trip was for five and a quarter days. The ticket his scholarship bought covered the convertible seat, three hypoallergenic meals and water. 

He had looked into the warp-capable shuttle business and found the comforting knowledge that all long-range shuttles must be stocked with food, water and fuel for a journey twice the length of the one they mean to take. So with just twenty-seven passengers and a crew of eight there should be enough. It was not a certainty however and the statistics on flights that were not properly stocked were making him uneasy. Tiber did not dare hack into the Long-Range's flight log, but it was possible he could find out another way.

Just like his night ventures on the USS Intrepid the night cycle on the Long-Range was quiet. The cabin crew on duty were both at the front of the craft. They were both human, one occupied with her PADD and the other watching the flight display with glazed eyes. Tiber watched for reactions as he along among the passengers stirred and slunk to the fresher at the back of the craft. There was a display here too, they had a very basic biometric lock on them. He had seen this being used on a previous bathroom trip and had spent the hours since writing and testing a bypass on his PADD. There was no password. Quickly Tiber stole through the system to the pre-flight log. It wasn't big, he cloned it to his PADD, disconnected and left the display to time out and reengage its lock.

Settling back into his seat Tiber saw the flaw in his plan. Both cabin crew were moving down the aisle. His heart began to race, he did not know how long the display might take to time out. One crew member he might be able to delay but not both. And if he did delay them and the lock had not yet engaged then he would certainly be the first suspect. He was going to speak, he had planned on possibly needing a delaying tactic, but not for both at once. They were almost at his bunk. And Tiber felt his throat thick and immobile like after his larynx surgery. They passed. Tiber didn't make a sound. He didn't turn his head to watch them. Instead he bent over his PADD and buried the stolen file in encryptions. 

It felt like hours later when he felt the crew member stop in the aisle alongside him. Hair on his arm prickling. He didn't look up. "Can't sleep?" Tiber was frozen. His heart pounding with the urge to run, but there was nowhere to go.

Slowly he angled his PADD towards her. After another moment he forced out a single word, "Studying." 

Hushed laughter should not be such a threatening noise, Tiber thought and half missed the beginning of "-intense, you'll fit right in on Vulcan." Then he was alone. 

The pounding of his heart slowed and Tiber realised they hadn't been looking for a break in. They hadn't been looking for a break in! They hadn't seen it; if the display had been open they hadn't even thought to think of the possibility. Distantly he was alarmed at the slack security. Foremost he was absorbed with digging out the stolen file and reviewing the comforting information within. 

\---

Leaving what Terrans still called the Red Planet for another redder planet, Tiber reflected that, hands down, Vulcan won and competition. Mars was more orange while Vulcan was nearly bloody. Terran bloody obviously. Strange then that Mars was named for War while Vulcan was the home of a largely pacifistic people. Tiber watched the red horizon of Vulcan loom in the grimy window. Red and dry, nothing like Terra, and nothing like Tarsus. Despite the discomfort the lack of wet would no doubt cause Tiber found this lack of similarity intensely comforting. Illogical of him, but he couldn't help the comparison or the relief that came with every point where Vulcan failed to match Tarsus VI.

Vulcan had what Terran's called a thin atmosphere, but in actual fact it was almost half a kilometre thicker. What the thinness referred to was the comparative lack of oxygen. Which is part of what Tiber's Tri-Ox would do. As the name would suggest it had three primary functions, first to strengthen cardiopulmonary system, second to assist the body in scrubbing carbon dioxide and third to increase oxygen binding. Tiber had read every document and paper on it he could find to pass the third day on the Long-Range. Tri-Ox had a long and ethically murky history. His research had improved now he had access to the VHA archives. The archives had a simply beautiful filing system which was outshone only by the code used to search through it and the federation network. Tiber had already been over the entire code twice just to admire its efficiency. 

Admittedly he'd had to look up what some parts of the code did. That had been a research project in itself. He had committed himself to reading all he could in Common-Vuhlkansu. Mostly he had been studying the rules of the VSA and the city he would be living in. 

The city of Regol was on the western edge of the Gol Plateau with the Khaf Rise growing to the South-South-West. Its Common-Vuhlkansu name was longer and meant something more like 'the Nurturing place of First Sun where Blood mountains lend their Strength to the Wisdom of the Seeking of Stars on the Sharp Edge of Flat Gol'. Hoshi had explained that Vulcan naming had changed over the years and that Regol was a shortening that was translated into Vulcan-Standard from Common-Vuhlkansu and much was lost in each translation. The technically correct form of the city's name was in Golic-Vuhlkansu, the regional language around the Plateau. While altered from the ancient form, the modern pronunciation did carry elements of the oldest recorded name. When written side by side this was especially so. 

It was interesting to read the history of the ancient city, and it certainly helped Tiber to brush up on his Common-Vuhlkansu while giving him the chance to puzzle through learning Golic-Vuhlkansu, He hadn't had much luck. Golic-Vuhlkansu originated almost a third of the way around the globe and in the southern hemisphere from where Common-Vuhlkansu had its roots. They were as different as Terran-Chinese and Terran-Swahili, and like those Tiber was only familiar with one. But he had long otherwise tedious days stuck in a half full Long-Range. So he found a Golic-Vuhlkansu to Common-Vuhlkansu and read it. Rote memorisation was the first step, as Hoshi would say.

He was just starting what seemed to be a child's guide to Golic-Vuhlkansu grammar when they hit atmosphere. The rough stabilisers jolted. Fumbling Tiber tucked the grammar under his legs pulling at his belts to tighten them. As the rattled their way down to the surface Tiber stared at his new home. A haze of dust obscured the line of the horizon, thin whips of cloud were streaked like scars below him and the earth was red. Not fresh blood red but still startling. He had seen pictures of course. But seeing it was like blood already clotting and dry on the surface. The tang of iron filled his nose. Tiber looked away. For the rest of the decent he focused on his PADD.

They docked and Tiber let the other people in the nearly empty Long-Range get out first. When the crew had announced their imminent decent Tiber had found his Tri-Ox and loaded the hypospray. Now he took it. Still in Terran standard air it made his head swim and everything seemed crisper. Feeling good despite the heaviness of his body he hefted his single bag and stepped out into the starport. The grav-gen in the Long-Range had been dialled up each day of the warp to Vulcan so Tiber was okay. However he still felt it as he stepped out of the artificial gravity well. 

His lungs were harder to expand, the muscles in his back tensed at the sudden increase and he had to stop. Quickly he reviewed what he had read on moving to high gravity living. The signs of danger. The way Tri-ox would help with all the problems. How modern science allowed people to adapt. Which was where he'd gotten distracted. It was very cool how people had learnt to live on other planets. Even a hundred years ago a human could not live on Vulcan long-term, now however that was almost commonplace. And vice-versa.

Calmed, Tiber consulted his PADD. Instead of heading for the exit he lugged his bag all the way to the Short-Range shuttles. The starport, very logically, had them arranged by distance of their destination from ShiKahr. Double checking the signs Tiber scanned his ticket at the gate for the Regol Short-Range. It beeped and flashed red. Tiber froze wondering what was wrong. Sure he was in the right place he checked the sign. Only then did he actually process what the tiny Vuhlkansu display read. Accepted. 

He felt his already flushed cheeks heat. Head down he walked forward. It wasn't until he was seated in the Short-Range that he quite grasped it. Red for go and green for stop. Exactly opposite to what humans did. Trying to put the mistake out of his mind Tiber pulled out the Golic-Vuhlkansu grammar. 

The smooth ascent and re-entry of the Short-Range didn't disturb Tiber from his doze. The Andorian leaning over him to peer out their window certainly did. Startled Tiber covered his jerk by also staring fixedly out the window. Being on the right of the Short-Range Tiber couldn't see the Khaf Rise but instead had the sharp line of the eastern edge of the Gol Plateau. To the far east was haze and something which might have been a sea, but most of his view was in the opposite direction. To the west and north the Gol Plateau spread out almost endless into an indistinct horizon. 

They landed in the northeast of the city, Tiber had looked up the route from the starport to the VSA. They were only a few kilometres apart. The VSA campus were located at the northern edge of Regol, it seemed to be an area of the city devoted to education. There were higher learning centres for vulcans beginning to specialise, each had a different reputation. Logically the one closest to the VSA was geared towards students wanting to pursue science, probably at the VSA itself. There were also a few learning centres where Tiber assumed general vulcan education took place - he vaguely lumped these with memories of his own primary education in Iowa and decided to avoid them. 

As he walked he practise his reading comprehension on the signs he passed. Actually applying Hoshi's lessons was bittersweet. The spirals still took conscious effort to make sense of but it was far easier than the alternate option; attempting to ask for directions. He puzzled out shop names and street signs. Vulcans did not do window displays which was weird. Caught staring Tiber avoided the gaze of a Vulcan peering at him from her shop and reset his bag hurrying on his way.

Already the heat was intense and the air felt wrong even as the Tri-Ox took effect and helped him get oxygen out of the air. 

\---

The walk he had predicted to take an hour took 83 minutes. The full heat of the Vulcan afternoon had only been part of it. With every minute his bag had dragged. He was unused to heavier gravity again. Of course he'd had all the grav-hypes on the colony. Tarsus IV had been heavier than what he'd grown up with. Still he was better off than if he'd only lived on Earth, but after half a year on Mars it was draining. Eurydike was kept at Terran standard with artificial grav pads built into the domed cities. He'd felt strong, here he felt crushed. At least he wouldn't have to take an entire week of grav-hypes again. 

With this small comfort Tiber sat on the steps into the main building. He'd tried to find a help desk or terminal so he could sign in. His scholarship package had been a little vague about what to do once he arrived. It said he needed to report to the Academy office but wasn't any more specific. The sun was no longer directly overhead so he sat in shade, but he had hoped to find a place to live this afternoon and he wasn't even done with his enrolment yet. 

Tiber tried to keep his face vulcan smooth, but every local that passed him studiously ignored his presence. It would have been a comfort if they didn't do it in a way that made Tiber so conscious of their dismissal. It was enough to crush every thought of asking for help. Hunching his sweat soaked shoulders Tiber glared at his PADD. It was blurry through his watery vision. He needed to stop. 

Tiber took a long breath. Blinked his eyes clear and started again. Enrolment could wait for tomorrow. Today he needed to find a place to sleep. 

The realty sites were a little trouble to navigate with a layout Tiber found completely illogical. His PADD beeped and he paused in planning how he would get to each appointment. Nibbling one of the calorie dense squares he'd bought before leaving Mars, Tiber continued. Regol had a decent transport network and he could buy a token at any hub, such as the one South of the VSA. Only finishing half the square Tiber packed the rest away and adjusted his sweat stained backpack. 

The vulcan-bus was as unoriginal as the Terran version he'd taken all his life. There really were only so many efficient ways to pack people in a transport after all. The red 'accepted' when he had scanned his token had again startled him, but he'd managed not to come to a complete stop like a fool. Tiber knew that it would just take a little time to get used to it. 

He looked at five apartments and three flats in the next four hours. All within an hour's walk of the VSA, and he bought none. In their own blank way the Vulcan agent or owner had made it clear that they resented him not including his species in his messages. The first one had been the most blunt about it, outright saying that Tiber's message had been misleading and Tiber was not a suitable candidate for the neat apartment. The flash of anger faded in an instant and Tiber slouched away never having crossed the threshold. The pattern repeated with only a variation in how up front the comments were. Tiber went on his planned route between the homes with sinking hopes. Apparently his money was not enough to make up for his humanity. 

His PADD beeped soon after the last one and Tiber pulled out the half eaten square. He had walked from the last apartment to a public courtyard with a fountain and plants. On a better day Tiber would have been excited to study the plants as he'd not paused to do so since arriving. But, although the thought occurred, he couldn't summon up the enthusiasm. Instead he sat in their shade, wore away at the square and stared mindlessly at the trickling fountain. 

Tiber had not been prepared for the reaction of the locals. He had faced xenophobes before, but then it had been different. When xenophobia became hate-crimes you killed and ate the person who did it. Tiber did not know what to do. Here the xenophobic vulcans were only dismissive. Even Tiber knew that to attack was out of proportion. He thought that he might be able to talk one of the agents around. But his Vuhlkansu was best in written form. And he'd barely been able to speak the typical greeting to some of the more abrasive types he'd met today. 

Sitting in the cooling evening, watching the fountain, Tiber tried to imagine what he might say. He could accuse them of xenophobia, bring up IDIC and demand to be fairly considered. It made a hitch of laughter press out his breath. Two vulcans, collecting water from the fountain, shifted so they couldn't see him. Tiber wiped the smile from his face. 

No. He did not have the courage or energy to argue with xenophobes. 

Tiber wiped the crumbs from his square away. That left him with no enrolment and no place to sleep. There were probably hotels or the vulcan equivalent in Regol, but already exhausted with the day and the gravity, Tiber found he was to worn out to deal with the prospect. No doubt vulcan hoteliers would be just as unwelcoming as real estate agents. 

Tiber considered the courtyard for a heartbeat. There were too many people coming to the fountain to collect water. He needed to find a quieter place to spend the night. 

So after making use of the fountain to fill his own water bags again Tiber went in search. In the dusky light he explored too-clean alleys and orderly gardens. It was in the last light of dusk. Most illumination coming from dim vulcan lamps when Jim found the place. It was off a public garden, a close alley that seemed to be a dead end rather than leading through to a street. Ideal. A little more detritus than the other alleys he'd explored. But it was not a dead end. Rather than a door there was a metal grating, locked with a simple latch. It gleamed dully in the light from the dull lamp at the alley entrance. 

The alley itself would be safe for a night, but curious, and feeling better in the cooler night, Tiber put down his bag. He knelt at the grate and fought in the half-dark to unlock it. 

It swung soundlessly inwards, hanging a little askew. Insensibly reassured by this imperfection Tiber shouldered his bag. He drew out his PADD and held it up to light the way. 

Stairs lead down into warm stale air. Tiber wouldn't have to take a Tri-Ox for another seventeen hours, so he cautiously breathed in. No light-headedness. He waited another minute to be sure. The stairs were worn but solid stone, cut it seemed into the rock of the plateau. He went down off the first landing there was a corridor leading off left and right, the light of his PADD was not enough to see far in either direction. The urge to explore was smoothing away the bitterness of the day. Giving in Tiber went deeper.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exploring the catacombs - familiarity with caves - conversations in golic - the great library - making a home

Exploring the catacombs - familiarity with caves - conversations in golic - the great library - making a home

 

The catacombs of Regol were as ancient as the city. Tiber traced his free hand over the cracked stone the words carved in ancient Golic-Vuhlkansu. He couldn't read it, only able to pick out familiar shapes in the writing. In some of the passages there were mosaics, the plaster sticking them to the walls crumbling and leaving the pictures distorted, their pieces scattered under years of dust. Still he could make out patterns, plants and even parts of people. With their aid, he guessed at the meaning of the script. He didn't linger long over any of the images, instead pressing on to discover more. 

He found a few doors and several locked ones. Curios he opened them, it wasn't hard, they had simple mechanical locks. As easy as it was he stopped because all three he had opened hid only grim chambers of stale air and old bones. He did not need to see more dead people in caves. So he walked passed locked doors now and crushed the curiosity that woke at each unexplored entrance. Instead he simply marked them down.

Wary of getting lost, Tiber had stopped at his seventh turn and opened the 3D builder on his PADD. He'd begun counting his steps and with the PADD built himself a map. It was crude, but he attached descriptive labels to note stairs and interesting walls. As he wandered deeper he added more. The three tombs he'd unlocked. The other locked doors he had not opened. A collapsed tunnel filled with rubble. 

Tiber had not felt this alive in months. Not since he had last seen Tom and Amy. The catacombs reminded him of their caves. Their home for so many months. The natural water formed caves of Tarsus IV were entirely different to the hand-cut corridors of these chambers under Regol. Yet Tiber was senselessly reassured by the familiar embrace of stale air and close stone. They had lived in many caves some mere scrapes into the foothills, but their final cave had been an impressive thing with a great cavern and pillars of stone. They had been safe there. As safe as they could be and had explored every crevice, some of the cracks far too narrow any but the youngest children to clamber through. 

When they'd had enough energy it had been a game. To explore, the children who could get through the two narrowest gaps coming back with reports of monsters or treasure as their moods dictated. Running his hand along the red stone here Tiber hated himself a little more for the fond remembrance. 

Spirits dimmed Tiber stopped and studied his map. His feet ached. He'd been wandering for hours. It was a twisted network, his labels of unexplored corridors spidering out in a chaotic array around the path he'd chosen. He'd looped back on himself just twice and seemed to have moved up a slope without noticing at some point. There was a room that suited him, near the entrance he had first come in by. It was a bean shape with a narrowing that looked like a dead end in the passage leading to it. Tiber thought it would do. He retraced his steps. And slid through the gap to his room.

The prospect of setting up for the night seemed to drain energy, Tiber dumped his pack in the furthest corner from the entrance and listlessly kicked a stone away. It skittered, loud in the stillness. There was a fine grit of stone here just like in the corridors, unlike some of those passageways, there were no old tiles to make a smooth surface. Still, he used his shod feet to find the least lumpy section of rock and pulled out the single jumper he'd brought to Vulcan. He placed at one end of the smooth patch. A makeshift pillow. 

How utterly pathetic. 

Tiber was sticky with sweat and stuck all over with the fine red dust that blew on the wind above ground. His involuntary grimace just made things worse. If he wanted to get this all done without fuss he'd have to blend in. So no grimacing. Practising still-face Tiber rinsed himself with some of his water and eyed the walls wondering how to hook up a shower. He stacked his clothes on a ledge and half of his food. The rest he kept ready in his pack. He would secure some of it in a few other locations, just in case. 

He spread out the foil blanket and opened his PADD to the Golic-Vuhlkansu grammar he'd dozed off reading on the flight to Regol. He got as far as gerunds when the soporific effects of the author's writing overwhelmed him. 

In his dream, the home cave was also red, but it was blood and he was scratching old Golic script into the walls, white as bone beneath the blood.

\---

Tiber spent most of the next day in the archives. Apparently, enrolment was only open at an early hour in the morning before the Enrolment Officer went off to other duties. Tiber didn't see the point, it was something that would better be done through a terminal or by PADD. Still, he got to practise his Common-Vuhlkansu and found he was, at the very least, understandable. Erring on the side of caution he had stuck to familiar phrases and the few he had practised aloud on the warp to Vulcan. The experience was good. It boosted his confidence enough that he could venture to ask for permission to enter the archives. 

The archives were, of course, not all held at the VSA. They were spread across many cities and even a few off-world locations. However, they had a large section here dedicated, predictably, to the sciences. As a student at the VSA Tiber was allowed to enter these, and would in the course of his studies begin to contribute to them. Like all Vulcan citizens and guest-students, he had remote access to a great deal of this data. However, his PADD was not capable of processing all the vast databanks of knowledge. That is what the displays in the archives themselves would do. Plug him directly into the servers that carried the knowledge he sort.

Tiber fought furiously with himself to keep his expression still and inoffensive. The Enrolment Officer seemed to be taking his time in responding. Tiber realised he was clenching his jaw in effort and incrementally relaxed it. A slow blink, then the vulcan skipped fingers across his display and gave an exaggerated nod. Tiber couldn't help the tiny flinch. Vulcans did not nod at each other.

He couldn't quite think how the vulcan might have meant it well. He garbled the phrase for thanks and almost ran from the office. 

He wasn't stupid. He knew the vulcan had probably been, been - Tiber stopped and ducked into an alcove. He fought his drumming heart into steadiness. Been, well-intentioned, when using the human gesture. But Tiber could not help but feel crushed. It was worse than the blankness to have a vulcan think he was so dim he'd only understand human motions. He'd gotten a place here. He belonged. He fit. He didn't need them to act human. 

Tiber pulled out his PADD to look at the student pass. It now had an icon for the archives. Proof that the Enrolment Officer had done his job. Perhaps proof that he really hadn't found Tiber contemptable. Weak proof. What vulcan would let his personal opinion of a human affect their work?

Dwelling on this Tiber carefully wound his way through the illogical maze of passages to the nearest entrance to the subterranean archives. Much of the VSA was underground, but the archives were the most extensive filling acres with supercomputers, stacks and specimens. It was a collection that had been gathered since the inception of the VSA. The specimens alone were beyond price, irreplaceable and Tiber had access to everything. 

The large hall he edged into was silent with the noise of three dozen vulcans murmuring commands to displays. The hundred alcoves each with a display were gently lit with the dim lights vulcans' preferred indoors. Since the cataclysm, their species had evolved to avoid the untenable heat of the midday when they had learned to retreat to cool tunnels and sleep. Tiber thought of his schedule and damned his humanity which meant that he would need more than the three point seven terran hours a vulcan's VSA schedule put aside for sleep each day. 

Tiber slunk over to display from which he could see doors and most of the room. He scanned his PADD and then set up the biometric pass and personal key code. It was reasonable security. Not terribly complex but solid and as Tiber opened the first few documents he felt the faint sensation of the biometric reconfirming his identity. So it was more sophisticated than it had looked at first glance. Wary of bringing punishments down on himself Tiber resolutely did not try to look into the security coding. 

Instead, he began bringing up his subjects and downloading to his PADD the references mentioned as 'complementary'. He had some general science course finished but had skipped most of his lab work. So the projects assigned for his botany, genetics and microbiology courses were the most exciting. For each, he was required to propose, plan, perform and present an experiment he judged would develop his knowledge in each area. There was no guidance given to what would be appropriate and Tiber had been agonising over this since he'd read his course schedule. It said he was expected to use all resources on hand, it indicated when his daily lab time would be and when his weekly slot to discuss with a teaching scientist was. This was for each of his three practical projects. And Tiber had long since come to terms with the difficulty in working around these. 

The main problem lay in the fact that he could go about six days on five hours of sleep each night. He'd tried it at Eurydike. On the seventh day his work had become noticeably worse. This schedule didn't even allow for a full five hours every night. 

It was inevitable that he would fail. 

Vulcan had, in terran hours, a little over thirty seven hours in each day. The refraction of light off of the almost constantly dusty atmosphere extended twilight for several hours. A typical adult vulcan needed less than one tenth of their day spent in rest. So only one-tenth of the day was spent in 'rest'. Just three point seven hours. Every day. For nine days out of the vulcan ten day 'week'. On the tenth day he got four tenths of a day off. 

A blessed fourteen-hour respite that would come three days too late. 

Tiber had been over his schedule enough to know it by heart. But now in the dim hush of the display room he brought it up again. He didn't have a full schedule. There were undesignated tenths, some of which married up to rest periods. If he could get REM sleep on those four days plus the tenth rest day he might just manage this. But he would need a secure place to sleep. His alcove had done for one night it was close to the VSA and to a water fountain. Tiber used his PADD to bring up the city map again. 

\---

His room was rough. The roof was low and sloped towards the entrance so Tiber had to duck to enter. He scuttled around and reached back to drag the bags through. 

He'd made more appointments to see flats and houses but met with the same coldness as before. He had cancelled the last two. Instead he stopped at the vulcan equivalent to a camping store and bought a sleeping mat and large water pouch. In his room he positioned the sleeping mat with its tough ground insulation in the crook of the L-shaped room. The now full water pouch he lay at the lowest point in the room furthest from the entrance. There was a ledge but it was too low. He wanted to hoist the water pouch up to make a camp shower. He had a hook, but there didn't seem to be a place to attach it. Not ready to give up Tiber awkwardly stood on the ledge using the corner to brace himself. He peered at the wall and roof in the light of his new headlamp. 

With some chiselling at the stone with the hook Tiber was able to hoist the water bag up, he tied off the cord and nervously hovered waiting to see if it would all come crashing down. It did, but not until he was fast asleep. 

The bag burst and sent a spray of water over the end of the room. Tiber scrabbled his headlamp on and wiped drops away. His heart hammering he eyed the roof. He wasn't sure what signs of imminent collapse might be though. Reaching for his PADD Tiber crawled out of his dusty bed and to the mess in the dip. Red dust had turned to mud like thickened blood and the bag gaped. The cord and hook were intact, but his makeshift shower hose was cracked and crumpled. 

Sitting back down on his bed Tiber loaded his PADD with lifestyle articles from Terra. His cave wasn't much like most of the beautified images. He also didn't have the option of plumbing water into his room, like many of the lifestyle pictures geared to luxury living. Tiber flicked through the perfect images thinking - and trying not to think - of the filth that had built up in their cave. He stopped looking at the pictures. 

The great Tar'Hana had built the Golic Plateau in seven floods. The basalt left behind was a hard red stone. Tiber couldn't tell if his room was the result of a gas bubble in the lava flow, tectonics or if like the corridors it had been the start of a new chamber, half cut off by a collapse. In any case, it was a sturdy rock and if he could drill into the stone he could make proper anchor points for his shower. 

Tiber frowned down at his PADD in the blue light of his headlamp. He had, without quite deciding on it, begun to think of living here. When he had come to Vulcan he had meant to buy or rent a flat like he had on Eurydike. Yes, he had run into hostilities, but he had dismissed the possibility of a house already and was apparently already in a mindset to move into this cave and make it a home. He was biased towards caves, they offered safety and shelter and the houses in the village had been a lurking hell. Tiber opened the real estate options again and shuddered. He was decided then. He would prefer to live in this hidden room of the catacombs. 

So he scrambled up and out of his room, up to the surface. He washed his hands and face in the little park his alley entrance backed onto and set out. He had shopping to do.

\---

Since Vulcans only slept one tenth of the day - and usually that was the hottest tenth, just after the sun peaked in the dusty skies - the shops were open all hours. Even the less popular shops such as the slightly careworn Travel Emporium. Tiber had a pulley, a drill and stone cutting bits, putty to fill and secure the hooks in the holes and just needed to replace the water bag and hose. 

This attempt was much more successful and Tiber was able to raise and lower his shower bag with only a little effort. For the first few days he was careful and not trusting that the putty had set, but when the heavy water bag failed to fall on his head by the third day Tiber decided this was a success. This small achievement was uplifting. 

Tiber had been spending ten terran hours in the archives each day taking advantage of his access and free time. He read about the seven eruptions of the great volcano Tar'Hana and the history of Regol. He found maps of the catacombs, to Tiber's delight, only one of which had his room on it. They weren't catacombs like on terra, where people were buried after cities ran out of room for graveyards. Vulcan culture almost universally preferred to burn their dead, or in a smaller part, leave them for carrion eaters. Tiber did not read any further into that. Carefully shuttering his thoughts away, and onto why vulcans had made them. 

Apparently, there were bubbles and even lava tubes in the great flows that Tar'Hana had created. Vulcan historian T'Pka postulated that with these initial beginnings the people in pre-history had used the natural caves to shelter from both sun and storm. When the people had become less nomadic, beginning to cultivate a variety of cacti-like plants, the natural caves had been used for storage of the fruits or roots, and the expansion had begun. The peak of cave use had been several thousands of years later when Regol was a small city, the use of the tunnels had diminished following architectural advances allowing the building of many more upward stories that remained firm against the storms. While most vulcan houses traditionally had basement levels it was more expensive to build downwards into stone than upwards and so the expansion of the catacombs had ceased. 

It was a little sad that the caverns so laboriously carved since before recorded history had fallen to disuse. Scholars like T'Pka had mapped and photographed them, recorded their mosaics and written of their histories and usage over the millennia. So they were not forgotten, simply, no longer of use, and so unused. 

Except by Tiber.

Aside from his exploration into the archives he was exploring the catacombs themselves. With his headlamp and his PADD he wandered the corridors discovering faded paintings and chipped carving. He would take up his PADD and read the thoughts of dead historians. The mosaic in the corridor outside his room was made abstract by missing tiles, but an older picture had a more complete image. It was of vulcans tending cacti, there were several varieties in the image and from the way the historians talked about it the image was an idealised representation of pre-Surakian Regol. One of the identified cacti, called Sa'vat, was apparently from a very distant part of Vulcan and T'Pka was very scathing in her diatribe on why this was inaccurate and the period depicted could not possibly have actually had any species of Sa'vat as it was only introduced in the century before the mosaic was constructed. 

Tiber was quite interested in the dichotomy in older and newer wall art. Surak had lived and died on the other side of vulcan and even though the idealised cacti mosaic was 'post-Surakian' in age the people of Regol had never heard of his teachings. The decades when Surak's teachings had reached Regol marked a complete flip in the style of art in the catacombs. With T'Pka his faithful guide Tiber was soon able to distinguish at a glance if a new carving he came across was pre or post-Surakian. As the days passed he was able to distinguish the distinct artistic movements within each period and could navigate his way through the maze using the art for landmarks. 

Tiber had not frittered away all his time on studies and ancient history. He had also fitted up his secret room. Buoyed with the success of his shower system Tiber had installed a stretcher for his sleeping mat and a battery chiller. He left a solar charger and spare battery carefully positioned in the alley. Then he had filled his chiller with food. He quickly learned to navigate the stores in Regol, finding bulk bargains and something like a farmers market. The market was on every third day and it had a dizzying array of fresh fruit and vegetables. Most of the vulcan produce Tiber was forced to look up. But every time he went he struggled to control himself. His eyes burned and so did his heart. It was such a joy to see the piles of Harha pods, Rek'Tor bulbs and the Sa'vat fruit that had inflamed T'Pka's criticism.

There were several that he had to avoid because of his Kelvin Baby allergies. Several more were simply inedible to humans. Some made his eyes water and mouth pinch and one made him gag and retch uncontrollably. Once he had mastered his flashback Tiber refused to even look at the innocently named Regol Apples. But he still went to the market. The joy he felt was addictive. Every time he visited the market he would carry back to his room a horde of fresh produce. With zealous care he stowed each away in his chiller. 

The fresh produce was a guilty pleasure. Tiber knew he should be spending the Survivors' money on his education and projects to help his children, but faced with the abundance he couldn't help himself. Not even for the guilt in brought. He tried to compensate in other areas. Aside from his exploration into the local produce, he mostly ate the cheap terran grains that traditionalist farming colonies insisted on growing despite the low return, and risk of crop loss. It was easy to mill in his little kitchen and soak for porridge or bake into a flat tough bread. It was nice. The hours he couldn't sleep he could spend preparing food. Day by day it became a ritual. 

Whenever he didn't have enough time to spend any the kitchen corner of his cave he would struggle to sleep. The day his studies began his time was dramatically decreased and defenceless in sleep his memory prayed on him, waking him with the urgency to secure his food stores. Helpless to the need Tiber broke his sleep to check the chiller, the grain and water stores. Brewing Noynip into tea became a simple way to set his anxiety at ease. The tea didn't taste of anything much. The Noynip had not caffeine either so it didn't make it any harder to slip into a second sleep. 

The traditionalist farming colonies were one of the things Tiber had wanted to study with Deianeira. Especially the economics and trade around agriculture. But he'd needed a mathematics level 1 to get into the course, and hand had time before Ms Davis had rushed him into scholarship preparations to make good on getting his mathematics grade early. Of course, the VSA taught economics and they had a whole course which focused on trade of foodstuffs. Tiber would be taking that course in his third term. In the meantime, he monitored the cost of traditional terran grains coming from the fundamentalist farming colonies and spun a hundred possible project ideas.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Classes begin - the odd alien out - speaking up - Vulcan insults

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tiber uses a bad word. Unfortunately, it lacks effect as he speaks in the wrong language.

Classes begin - the odd alien out - speaking up - Vulcan insults

 

\---

 

Tiber did not take the direct route to the VSA each day. This was for the simple reason that the direct route passed through several main streets. Busy main streets. While vulcans didn’t have anything quite like a terran rush-hour, it was too much to walk among them, feeling their stares creeping down his spine. So Tiber walked a quieter way. 

His route took him through his public garden with its fountain, threaded backways together to link up to a living tunnel of woven Evaga, planted around with Teiusqme. The Teiusqme beans had ripened before he had arrived so they were bare, but the Evaga stalks could be harvested all year. It always soothed his mind to walk through the artfully woven tunnel of stalks. 

Tiber always took the last side exit from the tunnel and avoided the major entrance to the VSA taking one of the many ways into the rock gardens which wrapped around the campus. Tiber didn't really like rock gardens. They amplified the crushing heat and sapped moisture from his skin, he always hurried through them on into the gloomy corridors of the VSA. The architecture of the VSA had not gained any favour with him. The weird spirals and illogical layout were offensive. Between the ruined catacombs he lived in and the ungainly ostentation of the VSA Tiber knew which he preferred. Triumph of engineering and design the VSA building might claim to be, but Tiber quietly thought it ornate and hideous. 

The outer building was rife with twisted towers and protrusions. It was like a sandblasted sculpture of a hedgehog. If the sculptor had only ever heard of hedgehogs once, when as a child he'd been pushed into a tangle of thorny Rek'Tor and come out with the thin thorns stuck to every inch of skin, his schoolmates laughing, then years later transmuted that self-image into the architecture of the VSA. Tortured-hedgehog was a very apt comparison for the exterior of the VSA. The interior might also be likened to the interior of a hedgehog, but Tiber felt it was far too maze-like even for that. Digestive tracks were logical. The VSA was labyrinthine. 

Nearly all of Tiber's classes and all of his labs were within the monstrous main building, which at least meant he didn't have to look at its disturbing exterior. The gloomy interior with its few natural light sources and ill-lit corridors had Tiber fancifully imagining sphinxes and pyramids. It was too clean to imagine himself a tomb-raider. He had better luck with such entertainment in his catacombs. However, his time playing in the catacombs proved a boon in the maze-like corridors of the VSA. With his recent deeper excursions at home, he found the winding corridors and sudden courtyards of school merely annoying instead of utterly bewildering. 

While it seemed he was expected to find his way around there was also a vague air of surprise whenever he entered a classroom. Tiber thought he might be anthropomorphising human emotions onto his vulcan peers, yet his arrival always engendered some reaction. If it was positive or negative Tiber couldn't tell. It made him conspicuous and he craved the indifference of the Eurydike student population. 

Not only his arrival either. He was not happy with his grasp of Golic-Vuhlkansu so did not speak out when the lecturer invited discussion. His peers did and they were equally unrestrained in the corridors. He found a little amusement in playing the deaf linguistically-challenged alien and learned a great deal about the universal cruelty of people. He had not truly doubted it. But hearing his peers make a point of his human qualities or at least his non-vulcan ones, Tiber found himself disappointed. He had not expected to be welcomed so the disappointment sat uneasily in his stomach.

Tiber knew what to do to stop it. If the bullying was the same as in human schools, surely the cure was equal too. But he held back. Too uncertain of his grasp of the language. Too uncertain of his place.

 

\---

 

He liked the calm tones of his second Microbiology teacher best. T'Veran had only to speak for the class to still. His peers were never disruptive in any class, but they did fidget. In T'Veran's classroom, however they became still and rapt with attention. Tiber too was caught in her voice, she spoke well he never missed a word and the meaning of new words was easily parsed. Despite appearances, Microbiology was not his favourite subject. He preferred both Botany and Genetics and it was his Genetics project that engrossed his thoughts throughout all other tasks. 

It was perhaps a simple premise, to make terran tri-grain more resistant. It had been done before, it was certainly not an original idea. Tiber was going to use his resources to attack it in a new way. There were two documented examples of terran-vulcan crosses. One of a terran orchid with a vulcan favinit, the other of a human with a vulcan. Tiber was aiming to make a selective cross by picking out parts of the code for L'loha and Noynip to make the tri-grain drought resistant and hardy enough to grown in a vulcan environment. He was looking forward to the project as L'loha had only one species' genetic code documented and it was only partially annotated. It was a hardy desert vine with technically edible roots and flowers but was not palatable either to vulcans or humans. On the other hand, Noynip had much better scientific coverage being the source of a popular beverage. 

So his project started with sequencing and then annotating the local L'loha. The accurate sequencing was straightforward with the VSA leading the federation in sequencing techniques. The annotation would be much more effort as he would have to familiarise himself with vulcan plant genes enough to understand their sequence himself. The automated annotation programs the VSA held for vulcan plants were excellent, but no perfect annotation device had been created in all the centuries since vulcans had devised their sequencing techniques. Excited for his project Tiber has been spending most of his free hour in the archive rooms pouring over protein structures, and reading up on the gene insertion techniques available to him. 

He was tying his genetics and botany projects together which he hoped would improve his efficiency as he would be able to spend twice the allotted time on one project. The botany side closely linked to the genetics, but lay more in his success in creating a viable plant able to survive in the arid conditions he proposed. He would be comparing its growth to that of tri-grain in terran ideal conditions and under vulcan ones, along with the growth of his two donor plants L'loha and Noynip. 

He even had an idea for extra credit in his soil studies. Their assignment was simply the collection and analysis of soil samples to be done in their own time. Tiber had a plan to grow his hybrid plant in soils representative of three or more areas of vulcan analysing the results for his biology and genetics projects as well as submitting the summary to his soil studies professor. 

 

\---

 

Determined to practise his vulcan so he could speak to his teachers Tiber read his work aloud to himself. He started in the silence of his catacombs but the practice grew quickly into a habit and only a few ten-days into classes he was speaking to himself during his lab hours. His peers had yet to catch him at it for which he was grateful. They had so far kept their distaste purely verbal but Tiber was something of an expert on sentient aggression and knew the state of affairs was likely to escalate. 

The first stage was easily missed. Tiber had developed a habit in his seating during each class. With an excellent display of pattern recognition, several of his classmates who had four classes in common began to shift their own seating making his preferred seat shift. It also made any seat less desirable as Tiber preferred seats as far away from his peers as possible, but they had predicted this and spaced themselves to make his decision difficult. Tiber suffered it for the first five days, but then as their formation grew more self-satisfied realised he would need to make a stand - of a kind.

Tiber arrived early and sat in the middle of the front row. He was the second student to arrive and was ignored by the other who barely glanced his way. His tormentors were a little putout but quickly reorganised. They began arriving early too. Tiber began arriving later when the class was half full and they would look ridiculous if they chose to shift seats so late. It was already ridiculous of course, but Tiber guessed his own tolerance for disgraced dignity was much higher than his vulcan peers. 

He was right. It was in his vulcan biology class that this behaviour was called out. Tiber had slipped in just as the door was locked and took a brief moment to calculate his seating choices when the professor addressed the class. Tiber moved to his seat and replied him careful vulcan that he had no complaint to make. When his instructor pressed him to remark upon the behaviour that she had observed Tiber gave himself a moment to construct the sentence. 

"Cruelty is a universal constant, it is no surprise that I find it here as well as in my previous schools." T’Sel watched him with the unreadable gaze of all vulcans before sweeping that gaze over her class. She seemed to come to a decision and spoke only one more thing on the topic before launching into her delayed lecture.

"There will be no more of this childish behaviour in my class."

Tiber did not think that cruelty to different people was a childish quality. T'Sel was the only professor who made any intervention. While her words seemed to halt any escalation of the bullying in Tiber's other classes it also clued all his peers into the game. From the original tormentors, Tiber suddenly faced a near-unified exclusion by his peers in all his other classes. They would crowd him in classes and hallways enough that he was taking alternate routes to get to class. Of course, that usually meant he was never first and so did not even have the advantage of being near the front of the class for good sight and hearing of the lecture. 

Still as he grew more absorbed in his project and his schedule wore upon him Tiber adapted to the scorn of his peers and in turn, they tired of the game. Not all of them to be sure, but most. And several only joined in when they were peeved, or so Tiber speculated. 

 

\---

 

His presence at the VSA was nothing special. He was not the first human to attend, still it was uncommon. The combination of these factors contributed to the delay in his presence coming to the awareness of the Higher Learning Centres and the subsequent attention he gained from the young vulcans attending these facilities. Tiber was caught flatfooted. His peers had already moved past their first reactions to him. He was secure at the VSA and knew how to get around unobtrusively.

He was not prepared to be ambushed on his route home. Fool that he was he had let habits build into a routine. And everyone knows routine kills. 

The vulcan children surrounded him. There were seven of them. Tiber let himself come to a stop. "You were right, Taurik, the human has not adapted to T'Khasi. You see his skin blisters." Tiber did not look away from them. Once when he was on Terra two bigger kids had stopped him and told him he had a stain on his shirt. When he'd looked down to see they had grabbed him and shoved him back and forth between them until he'd fallen, dizzy and crying to the ground. 

"Yes, Rekan. The human is too weak for our sun." The one called Rekan seemed to be the instigator, he seized this idea and ran with it. Tiber waited, they were too well placed to dart through. 

Vulcan children did not laugh, but they did a sort of self-satisfied humm. As Rekan's latest comment elicited this response Tiber backed up five quick steps.

"The human runs. Cowardly human." Rekan stepped forward and the others followed. As Tiber had hoped it broke up their neat arrangement. His plan was not to go through them but to the side passage which as he drew them to one side they cleared a way for. Tiber glanced over his shoulder checking for any more of them. No, the courtyard only had older students. They pointedly ignored the human backing into their space and the tightening group of vulcan children following. "Go around." Rekan hissed. And Tiber's plan clicked together. 

Four of them darted around behind him. They moved fast. Which was worrying, but he had surprise still on his side.

Even as they focused on blocking him Tiber moved he was on their other side and spun to halt. A tactic which made them stop too. "I hope your mother beats you, you racist little fuck." Tiber snarled in the pause and then ducked into the side passage and ran. 

He realised only when he got back to his garden that he'd spoken in Terran-Standard. Habit was a bitch. Tiber slumped to the gravel under the trees and pulled out his padd. He needed to plan exit routes. Then he had to review the morning's lectures. With a sigh, he pulled out his drink bottle too.

 

\---

 

Tiber changed up his routine by taking different routes, but he couldn't stay away from the VSA. His catacombs were not equipped for his research and he had to use the labs for his projects. He learned all the ways into the labs. The unglazed windows opening into courtyards from the rock garden, or a mezzanine easily reached with a leg up from an ugly statue. However, Tiber did not have to be at the VSA during his free time.

Instead of spending his free time in the archives or study spaces Tiber began to wander the city. In the cool of the night it was almost pleasant and in these walks, Tiber would often let his Tri-Ox run out and breathe without assistance the thin air. After all his excursions Tiber was growing accustomed and it was a good thing for his Tri-Ox supply would only last four more. He had looked into getting more but it would be hard, easier to leave vulcan and steal some on a terran planet. So Tiber had put that option aside and occupied himself with activities closer to home. 

In his more than generous free time Tiber took shuttles to see other cities. He collected the soil samples he needed for soil dynamics and visited museums and libraries. He even hiked up to a temple on the side T’Raan. The of Temple of T'Panit was an education in itself. The priests were standoffish, but not unwelcoming, they were more interested in Tiber than many vulcans Tiber had met. They even taught him a little Cheleb-Khor -Vuhlkansu, just a few words but Tiber vowed to learn the language and return to thank the priests for their kind patience. 

He decided after exploring several cities and places on Vulcan that his favourite place was the Amber Coast. In Common-Vuhlkansu it was Puhku Gef and had many small towns and estates along it. The 'coast' ringed the Amber Sea, which was a speck of water, but Tiber loved it. He had gone on his rest-day three times in a row. He had found a tiny fruit seller and discovered O'ocan which were his newest favourite fruit. The fruit seller seemed bemused by the human who turned up every ten days to buy the sweet cacti fruit. 

Their interactions were identical every time. With no idea of Pekev-Vuhlkansu Tiber was limited to his Common-Vuhlkansu. He would greet the seller and scoop the small fruit into the bag he kept from the first purchase. Then he asked, "How much does it weigh?", and the seller would tell him. Tiber would think of asking for a little more or less, but never having the courage to be greedy or refuse the food, he would calculate the credits and pay the seller. "Thank you for the O'ocan." Tiber would say before he left. The seller never replied. 

Tiber would bring the fruit home and place in his chiller. He only spent all of his rest-day at the Amber Coast every three or four ten-days as the trip was a treat and he needed to focus on his studies. 

These distractions were a balm. Tiber tried not to indulge them too much as he had to make sure his grades were excellent and that his projects were working. His tri-grain was struggling, none of the initial ten hybrids had survived, and only two had germinated at all. It took a full two ten-days before he had a reasonable theory for why they had failed and then it was not straightforward to work around the incompatible genes. Tiber wrote up the failure and proposed the workaround. 

He didn't get any feedback from his genetics professor, she seldom gave him feedback. So, hoping he had thought of everything, he started again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shopping in the city - walls - favourite places - calling home

Shopping in the city - walls - favourite places - calling home

\---

When Tiber found the burial chambers he felt only a little like the Tomb-Raider he had been imagining. This was something different. The cracked mosaics were hard to read, but Tiber brought up his archive link and read over the explanation, feeling more sick with every word. Morbid curiosity had him peer along the beam of light into the chamber. He stepped through the threshold and gazed at the urns. Flicking the beam of light from each small resting place along the line into the distance. Regular and undecorated. The urns churned out by the hundred to take the burned remains of the plague victims. It was ridiculous to feel awful for people dead more than five centuries before, but Tiber felt himself near tears. He could easily imagine the kind of terror that seized people under such a threat, it could not be much different to that of hunger, only they probably hadn't dared eat their dead. He sank to his knees laughing or crying and breathless. It bent him over till his forehead was in the dust of years. 

It took a long time for Tiber to get a grip on himself. He was exhausted from his hysteria and the remembrance of his actions was paralyzing in the face of this horribly organised tomb. How had they managed to be so calm? They had been able to take the time to make urns. Time to burn their dead and place them together in this room. He could understand the terror, but not how they had overcome it. Tiber was shamed. They had managed what he had not, to keep civilisation going despite the terror. 

Tiber hauled himself to unsteady feet. His light flashing over the room. The broken remains of urns lined the floor, and the shelves had gaps. He knew from the padd in his hand that the urns had been painted, a hasty decoration, but so much more than he had ever given one of his children. The urns' paint had long faded into indistinct colourless patterns. And slowly Tiber paced the length of the hall looking to those at eye height, looking for the evidence of time taken for the dead. He stopped at the end. Bare wall where the mosaic had fallen away. The gaps showed a rough surface covered with plaster. Had they cut this room before the plague arrived or had people come down here while above the city was ravaged by disease? His padd did not have that information, he was left to the speculation of it all. 

Unlike the dust of the floor the ceramic tiles were cool on his forehead. He was filthy and this was doing no good. When he turned around he kept the light focused on the doorway and refused to look at the urns again. There was no point. 

He cleaned himself up and packed the empty water bladder into his pack. He'd fill it before he came in again, but he didn't want to be here right now. 

The brightness of the day was usually a source of discomfort. Today it was a relief, he stood in the seclusion of his garden and let the light burn away his terror. The heat of it soaking into his bones. It had been so cold on Tarsus some days. He only felt cold here, but it never was. 

He'd explored much of the city. Found the markets and even had a favourite shop, a sort of wilderness shop that sold things like his portable chiller. His feet knew the way and he did a loop of the shop before deciding that he didn't need anything today. What he did need were new clothes. He'd grown and the old ones were getting short and a little tattered. He guiltily supposed the tattered edges were due to the catacombs. 

He paused by a fountain to look for possible clothes stores. He was the right shape to find vulcan clothing wearable, the problem came in the thickness. Tiber did not need insulating layers. There were a couple close by and several along a main commercial road with a vulcan-bus he'd used before. As expected the shops had nothing really suitable. Tiber might have broken into a sweat just looking at the pieces his size, except he was already sweating. He'd gotten used to it, but any exertion left him losing what felt like his body weight in sweat. He'd had to buy salt supplements in the first month when he'd started getting cramps. 

He didn't much like catching the bus. It meant having to be around people and they always looked at him. Human's weren't that common but still, he resented it. He always felt unclean afterwards and needed to go find somewhere to hide afterwards so he could check if anyone was following him. Sometimes people got off at the same stop and he had to make a series of quick changes to ensure he couldn't be caught. It was exhausting. 

Neither the first two nor the main road of shops had anything that suited. Tiber found a quiet alley and checked his padd, he abruptly stopped when a vulcan came out of the back of a shop and stared at him. Tiber slunk away. Desperate to avoid confrontation. He'd found vulcans did not like humans to be lingering behind their shops. Several had raised their voices to him and Tiber now erred on the side of caution and disappeared as soon as someone else entered an alley he was in.

Finally he came upon a shop which stocked imported clothing for aliens. It was on the far side of town and didn't have much. In fact the clothes were a little big, but Tiber figured he might continue to grow. Maybe. He dreaded needing to replace his shoes. It would probably be easier to set up a fake tax account and have them imported to Vulcan. 

He took the buses home and paused in his garden to refill his water-bladder. He hugged it to him to get down the steps and into his room. Putting the water bladder down with the others Tiber filled his mug with some of the fresh water and drank. He put his bag down on the 'shelf' the wall made and sat in the dip that was like a chair. Or a throne, he smiled to himself. 

His room was lovely. He'd even gotten a cutting of Savjk to grow. The dark loving plant didn't need sunlight to grow instead, it cultivated a symbiotic relationship with several fungi species. These it farmed to get the energy it needed while it sank its roots through rock to find water. Of course, Tiber fed it water, so it had not developed a vast root system, but it was nice. The fruit was bland but it was a ready food supply for the 'cooler' part of the year. 

He ate one of the fruit and made porridge. As he did so he pondered his own attempt at genetically modifying tri-grain. Not that the grain he was making into porridge was tri-grain, he certainly wasn't paying that much. This was oats from some stubborn terran colony that refused against all logic to farm anything but 'traditional' grains. Still they sold them cheap. His own tri-grain was not a success. His second attempt at gene splicing was looking theoretically possible and he was ready to trial it in the lab. Still, he felt less confident. He'd thought the first trail would work after all, and it had not. 

Moodily eating his porridge Tiber tried to think of what he could have missed. 

\---

Only a day after buying his new clothes Tiber ventured to that side of the city again. The bus didn't take long and he wanted to explore the section of old wall he'd seen. Of course, Regol was an ancient city and it had city walls even today. But Tiber had not seen evidence of the old walls until his shopping trip. Armed with his padd and a litre of water Tiber had set out to discover history. 

The wall was built onto the back of several domestic dwellings. But the top of it was certainly a defensive wall. Consulting his padd Tiber flicked through several designs until he found a couple that might match the shape of the old wall in front of him. He hovered in a shade patch and read the padd. This wall, he guessed, was probably a more recent city wall, the current wall was more than seven hundred years old and had been expanded about once a century. Which meant the most recent section was only a century old or so, but that meant that Regol maintained its old exterior wall. Tiber found this amusing, Regol did not need an exterior wall any more. It was the space age, in fact, it had been the space age for vulcan seven hundred years ago and certainly, they had had atmospheric-flight for longer than that. Which meant the population of Regol regularly expanded a wall that no longer kept out enemy tribes. Why?

Hunting for a logical reason, Tiber found many excuses. It was true that a physical wall prevented desert scavengers from entering the city. It was also true that it helped break the force of sandstorms. However modern technology could also have done this. A force field would repel desert scavengers and storms and with the powerful sunlight, they could probably generate more than enough power for it. Indeed upon looking Tiber found such a system was already in place. Regol had a force field. A good one that could protect it from both. It was meant to be used only for the most extreme of storms. 

Apparently the vulcan population liked to have the occasional 'mild' sandstorm rage through their city and only wanted the 'dangerous' ones deflected. Tiber scoffed. He'd been caught out during a 'mild' storm and had the top layer of his skin flayed off. It was not anything resembling 'likeable'.

Tiber read over the public information from the shield and reformed his ideas. It looked like it was starship grade. Tiber blinked down at his padd. He glanced up at the old wall. The thought that the quirky physical wall was just a blind for the real protection occurred. The thought persisted. Perhaps the planetary protection of their cities for the potential of space launched bombings or whatever was cleverly screened by calling it sandstorm protection. And they used it so seldom to prevent its existence being common knowledge, especially to aliens visiting their cities. The 'dangerous' storms only occurred once every year or two, so any chance visitor was unlikely to see many. 

Or maybe not? Who knew with vulcans. It could just be that their cities had walls and so they kept up the practice. 

He took the bus back to his side of the city and wandered to the exterior wall. Climbing up onto it he avoided the gaze of a vulcan walking in the opposite direction and studied the stone under his feet. It was dura-crete and basalt a good six or seven meters wide at the top and if Regol should ever need to fight an ancient land-war quite serviceable. There was some damage from the sand, but also patches from repair work showing the wall was maintained by the city. 

They were siege walls made to withstand the battering of the worst storms and the rocks hurled by the tornados of wind. They endured the passing of time with equanimity. Tiber tried to look up how they were moved when the city expanded but found himself buried in engineering reports and set it aside. He was not in the mood for engineering. He'd look it up another time. Today he was more interested in the desert and its comings and goings. 

He watched from above as people entered the gate south of him. Perhaps they were students at the VSA or one of the schools that ringed it. He could not distinguish them at this distance. The wall gate was one close to the VSA though. There were many wall gates, all of which undermined any real defensive factor the wall claimed. They had force fields, but these could be let down when locked by a simple press of the recessed switch. After all, they were mainly to keep scavengers out, not vulcans who had stayed out in the desert until nightfall. 

Tiber looked out at the desert. To the north and west was the horizon blurred by heat. If he looked south-west along the wall he could see the haze of the Kahf Rise. He had wandered out a few times, but as the sun sank he thought it looked more inviting. There was a rocky outcrop to the north a bit which he'd found before. 

Tiber wandered north away from the VSA looking out across the desert. He couldn't see anything much. But above the sky darkened. As always the particles always in the vulcan sky made the sunset quite beautiful. 

\---

He did wade through the engineering jargon and marvelled at the effort it must take to build new foundations for the walls. And that was before they moved them, it was impressive. He made a habit of exploring little pieces of the desert, going in and out through a new wall gate each time. The wall gates were quite fun, Tiber liked the tunnel quality all the small ones had and found favourites. The only drawback was the small gates were not wide enough for two people, not comfortably. So Tiber often found himself backtracking to make way for a vulcan. They might think he was being polite and showing deference to the locals, or to vulcan touch-telepathy. It was nothing of the sort. Tiber just didn't want to be that close to anyone. 

He didn't give up his wall-gate exploration though. But he didn't return to gates where he had met people. Preferring to restrict his habit to the less frequented gates. 

Visiting the rocks became a habit too. Tiber was gathering them like flies to a corpse. If he had a free slot in the evening just as the sunset he would climb up and follow the wall north. His rocks were a little way from the city, enough to be unobserved, but not so far he could not sprint back in one go, or that there was any threat of predators. He'd tested the sprinting, of course. And no predators liked to be so close to the city. Scavengers could be plenty dangerous though. And an injured predator that had lost its territory might be driven to approach the city, so Tiber was always vigilant. 

It was too lovely a spot to give up for minor risks. It soaked in heat during the day, and when Tiber came to it would be hot to touch. The heat too hot at first would relax his muscles and sprawled across it in the dying light was one of the most peaceful parts of Tiber's day. He didn't always make it out. Some days he spent visiting the Amber Coast or a new destination and didn't arrive back in time for the rocks to be hot, but if he was in Regol and it wasn't a day he had late classes or labs, then he invariably came out to his rock. It would heat him though, and he would lay on it watching as the stars came out.

He loved the stars. Loved them despite everything. He remembered loving the stars on Tarsus too. They were easy to love them and just as easy to hate. Of course, the stars looked different here, not only their positions and names, but the ion cloud over Tarsus had distorted them. It had been so beautiful. Creating halos and prism effects. They had been so foolish. It had been the death of them all and they had thought it beautiful. Death and beauty should not be so easily mistaken. 

He'd tried to hate them on Tarsus. Tried to make them represent all his childish hopes and dreams and his worship of Starfleet. He had thought he hated them. But he'd only hated himself. 

He remembered flying through the thinnest part of the ion cloud and being so excited. He'd practically vibrated with excitement. It was all he'd talked about until they landed and he'd thought that he'd arrived in paradise. It was odd thinking back to how stupid he'd been. Blind and trusting and getting everyone killed. 

Tiber started up at the stars, eyes dry and knew he'd always love them. Despite everything. He doesn't think of his children, or the family he didn't have, or what he did to make sure he survived, or the other things he did so his children would survive. He doesn't think how lonely this is. He doesn't miss his children. His breath comes steady and his eyes are dry. And he loves the stars. Despite everything.

\---

Tiber decided to make the call from Dahhanakahr. It was safer that way. The messages they posted were anonymous enough but a direct voice call was something more easily traced. Despite being in touch through their messages Tiber felt his heart clench at the thought of speaking with them again.

Dahhanakahr was near Shi'kahr but not a main centre, it was something of a spa-town. Or, at least that is what Tiber thought of it when he visited. It was why he returned to it to make the call. Plenty of aliens came to the city for its hospitals and medical retreats, one more human making an outgoing call would not be noticed in the mix. 

Amy picked up and for a moment they smiled at each other. Tiber lifted his hands to his cheeks and wiped at his eyes. It had come so naturally after all this time suppressing his expressions it was like flying to smile at Amy. "You look tired," she said. Tiber felt his smile grow. 

"I am very busy," he soothed. "I will head home when we are done and sleep, I promise." Amy agreed, she was not one to nag at others. That was more up Tom's line. With that thought, Tom connected. The three survivors grinned at each other until Tiber broke it. "How are you and the kids?" Amy started, she told him how each child was settled and gave him her opinion of their guardians. So far nothing was wrong, but she did have some concerns. While most of her kids were struggling with school and were a little timid in socialising again they were by and large bouncing back. There was one she was concerned about, their guardian was struggling and it looked like things might deteriorate. Tiber promised to look into it and they made a time to meet on the chat board. Tom's report was better, he had no concerns outside the expected and quickly moved on to talking about his school and the teachers who were helping him. Then it was Amy's turn to enthuse about her first months in medical school. She had had to do some catch-up but was somewhat further ahead than her peers in anatomy both of human and alien biology. Tiber tried not to let that disquieting thought weigh on him. 

Then Amy and Tom turned to him. He wasn't sure what to say. Definitely nothing about his peers. So he told them about his tri-grain project. It was well picked. Tom immediately had some ideas on his workaround for the incompatible genes and Amy launched into a diatribe about the possibility of having conservative pasture colonies uptake it and what else they could add to it to make it a better health food. Amy's ideas were for the future, but Tom's suggestions were interesting, Tiber had thought of many but Tom threw new light on some and in debating the finer points Tiber realised he needed to catch his shuttle back to Regol. 

His expression, suddenly open in their company, gave him away. With regret they parted, closing the call at the last moment and promising to have another call soon, the message board a pale stand-in for the voices and faces of each other. 

Tiber caught his shuttle and dozed on the short flight. It had been so good to see them but now his heart burned with loneliness all the more fierce for its moment of relief.


	6. Chpater 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Project problems - sun warm stone - tears - the sensation of fur

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter! But there is someone fluffy, or well, almost fluffy, she has fur which is close enough.

Project problems - sun warm stone - tears - the sensation of fur

\---  
The second attempt had also failed. Tiber lay on his rock as the heat of the day drained away. The rock was a brand against his back but he didn't move. 

Combining his subjects into one project had seemed so logical. It would cut down effort, increase his efficiency and he had not foreseen failure. None of his second attempts had succeeded. Not a single viable specimen, not even a promising start from any. Not one had even germinated. Tiber could have screamed. It was so hard to keep his face still. He'd left the lab early and come out to his rock instead. His bag slumped beside the rock. And Tiber didn't have the energy to fish his water bottle out of it. He stared at the sky and tried not to think. 

A pointless endeavour. His thoughts plagued him. As he stared the failed project spun before his eyes. He began to calculate where he could have gone wrong and how to prove that it had gone wrong in that way. The first batch had gone wrong because two genes had been pulling from the same base protein which meant neither had enough to do their jobs. His fix had been to overproduce the base protein, and he'd tried six different ways of doing that. And it had not worked. It had, in fact, worked worse than his first attempt. 

So he'd gone wrong somewhere, as he always did. He'd missed some critical gene or interaction and proved himself a failure as a scientist. Unable to do the critical thinking that was essential to improvement. Tiber stared up at the fading light. 

He tried to breathe and found the thin air was not enough. He tried to count. 

His eyes blurred, but he refused to let the tears escape. He had to keep his face still. The air was too thin. He was a waste. He needed to breathe. He couldn't fail his courses. He couldn't breathe. 

He'd failed. He couldn't breathe. 

\---

The pain came like a stomach five days empty. He curled in on it. It was psychosomatic, it had to be, but the emptiness of the desert and the failure were too much today. 

Tiber curled tighter as if that would squeeze out the loneliness. It felt like defeat and disgrace. He desperately wanted his children but could not even imagine showing them his face after his failure today. He needed to know they were safe. His checks had to be enough, but they were not, he needed to touch each one, look into their eyes, make sure they were still alive. He needed them to need him. It had been eight months they were so small, but surely they remembered him? 

Tiber curled up tighter, blinking fiercely into his knees. His breath pressed through teeth and his jaw throbbed. His hands made claws as he focused on not crying. He was shaking with it. His hands ached with the pressure. 

And then someone touched him.

\---

Tiber uncurled like he was spring loaded. His heart rate was up in a beat and cortisol flooded out of his adrenal cortex so fast he lost his breath. The young vulcan touched the top of his head again. Tiber flinched ducking his head, but the rest of him froze. 

Conflicting urges battled and in his bewilderment, the vulcan did it again. Tiber rocked in place. 

The vulcan was patting him on the head. 

This revelation took several seconds to sink in. The vulcan continued. Tiber wondered disjointedly if this was some sort of examination of his pale human hair. Which was a little odd on Vulcan. It had to be his hair because the vulcan was distinctly unthreatening. Tiber stared. And the vulcan continued his self-appointed task unperturbed. Tiber wondered what to do, or say, or do, or say, or do in this situation. Because this vulcan might be unthreatening, but he was definitely weird. 

\---

Just as Tiber felt he had a grip on the situation a small movement drew his gaze. It met the curious eyes of a very large Sehlat. It regarded him from high on the third point of this unlikely triangle. Seemingly this was all it was waiting for, because it shifted forward and lowered its huge head to lay on Tiber's lap. The weight of it drawing Tiber's attention fully away from the vulcan and to the soft fur against his fists. 

It was not exactly soft to touch, it felt slightly scratchy. However, the sheer amount of it lent it a sort of softness. And Tiber found his hands were curling through the mass of it. 

The gentle scratch of the fur seemed to be all he could think of, and the warmth of the creature breathing softly beneath. His fingers curled over the protrusion of an ear and continued onwards to trace muzzle and fang. 

The slow breathing of the Sehlat stilled his own raggedly panicked sobs. He wasn't drowning in the desert. He was on his rock. His children were safe. And they would remember him kindly however vague the memories became. 

\---

The padd chirped in his bag. Tiber blinked at the Sehlat in his lap and then made to reach for his bag. The sehlat moved, the vulcan stepped away. Tiber lifted his bag. And looked up into the night sky. True night, with no trace of twilight to it. He drew out his padd and saw it was well past sundown. The vulcan lent down and Tiber started at the movement, but he was just turning his Sehlat way. 

Tiber wondered what to say. But it was the vulcan who spoke, and not to Tiber. "Come with me, Mus." And that was all, the pair ambled on into the desert and Tiber turned back for the glow of the city. 

If either looked back the other did not see. 

The route was familiar and Tiber took it quickly. He snuggled into his bed warm and safe in his corner of the catacombs. He didn't dream that night. If he wondered about the weird vulcan, it was mostly with gratitude to him and his Sehlat.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Safety in the dark - learning goals - bench press - humans in the VSA

Safety in the dark - learning goals - bench press - humans in the VSA

 

\---

 

Yellow. 

Tiber lay on his sleeping mat. It was stuffy in his room. He should have gotten up twenty minutes ago. Sleep still had a grip on him and he lay in a half doze.

Yellow. 

Still, he could lay here for a little while longer. 

Yellow.

The blinking light on his chiller flashed again. Tiber rolled over so he couldn't see it.

Yellow.

The tiny light illuminated the wall and his shadow against it. Such a small light really shouldn't be able to break the blanket of darkness in his room. 

Yellow.

His padd buzzed and Tiber levered himself up, kicking covers off as he did. 

Yellow.

He glared at his chiller and fumbled for the switch for the lamp he'd rigged. In the brightness, the chiller's power was lost. He wandered over and opened it. He'd left grains to soak water and fruit syrup overnight. The mixture was a little slimy but tasted good. He pulled on pants and shoes in between bites. Dragging fingers through his hair he thought again about cutting it, but it was a low priority. It held the position. Secured with its semi-permanent cement of sweat and sand. 

Tiber pulled on a shirt, the red one. And bag in hand rushed for the surface. There was no time for exploring the depths today. Tiber burst out into bright afternoon sun and took one of the shortest routes to the VSA. He didn't have time for a detour today. He noticed a few vulcan children from the Higher Learning Centres but they ignored him. The thought that the weird vulcan was of an age with them led Tiber into a quick consideration. Was his vulcan was studying at any of the Higher Learning Centres? Not all of them were near the VSA, mostly just the science-focused ones. He shook the thought of his weird vulcan off only as he plopped himself into a seat in his vulcan Botany lecture. 

They were studying the sher'khah tree and the ravot sher'khah which constructed its vis in the sher'khah tree. The tree and the ravot were essential to the health of the other. Tiber had done the reading for it days ago and was looking forward to T’Sel's presentation.

Somehow today was better than yesterday.

 

\---

 

As Tiber dragged his feet to his lab and failed project, hoping for his good mood to hold, something amazing happened. His padd buzzed. A message received. Tiber ducked into a dead-end corridor and went behind a statue of a mutant lizard to read it. 

T'Sel had sent him the message. Tiber looked up and down the corridor, but there was no one around who might witness anything. He did the breathing exercise Tom had sent him. "Tiber Riley, please inform yourself of the attached articles. Professors T'Sel."

Was that all? Tiber re-read it. Yes. It was. He looked at the article titles. Oh.

He slid down the wall and cradled the padd on his knees. Oh.

They were articles about hybrid crossing alien species. He had even read one of them. Feeling shaky, Tiber read the titles again. He let it out in a laugh. 

T'Sel had sent him ten research articles. Seven of them were failed hybridisations, admitted in the title. The other three were successes. But as Tiber scanned the abstracts he realised that not one of them had achieved their initial goals. It would be too human to message T'Sel any thanks. Probably he should not reply at all. 

In the dim corridor, out of sight behind the ugly statue Tiber read the articles through. It took his entire lab block, but by the end, he had a few ideas for his project. He drafted them up and opened his project reports again. Shifting to get comfortable, Tiber slowly typed out a summary of his second failed experiment. He eked it out word by word. It was a struggle, but with every sentence down he felt tight knots in his chest ease. With the articles a tab away, he suggested a cause of his failure. With the draft coming together he even came up with one possibility to try a third experiment with. It would all need to be rewritten, but it felt so good to have something to submit. 

His free tenth quickly vanished into his padd. All too soon he was faced with three labs one after the other. Tiber pulled himself up against the wall. He just needed to get through the next three tenths then he would have his rest day. Or technically, his rest half-day. Still, out of sight behind the statue, he cleaned his face with a corner of his shirt he'd dampened from his drink bottle. If there ever was a trace of tears they would be gone now. Tiber gathered his things. Before he left he did Tom's breathing exercise, smoothing his face into a still mask.

When he arrived in his genetics lab he was ready to face his second failure with an expressionless face. 

 

\---

 

With the third iteration of his project underway and the draft of his project reports looking quite like the articles T'Sel had sent him, Tiber was almost happy. His peers still ignored or insulted him as their whims dictated. But their insults were almost entertaining. This was because Tiber's grasp of written Golic-Vuhlkansu was excellent, but his compression of spoken was a little behind. So he never quite understood the slur straight away. He had initially had to look up words. This, in turn, had greatly benefited his ability to deal with the younger set of vulcans from the Higher Learning Centre. However, it had also made him aware of something else. The older vulcans from the Higher Learning Centre and his peers at the VSA often made their insults rhyme. 

Once Tiber had noticed this he heard it more and more often. Every time it nearly killed him to keep his face smooth. It was ridiculous. They rhymed their insults. Tiber tried to look this marvellous discover up in the archives but could not find anything about it in modern vulcan society. There were a few bits and pieces on poetry and insults in historical fields, but he was less interested. 

Eventually, Tiber knew he had to ask. So he did. The very next free block he took the shuttle to the Amber Coast and he asked the O'ocan seller. 

They had spoken twice outside their usual exchange. Tiber had once enquired about a new fruit just come into season, Sa'vat. These were nice but very sour, and Tiber still liked the sweet O'ocan best. The other time Tiber had been worried he might be overwatering his potted Savjk. 

The O'ocan seller had taken an age to answer the latter question. Eventually, he had said, "Savjk only suffer in sunlight, they may drown their roots in a lake but only take what water they need." Which had reassured Tiber endlessly.

So now he had another problem the archives didn't have a clear answer to his thoughts turned to the O'ocan seller. 

Tiber stepped down into the sturdy room. It was half submerged in the sands to minimise exposure to storms like the people who had built the catacombs had done. The O'ocan seller looked up and raised a hand in a brief greeting. Tiber gave it back and felt his resolve crumbling. It was too late for retreat. The quick black eyes swept back up to his face and Tiber knew he had shown something. A little distressed he wondered if he could back out of this, but knew if he did he wouldn't be able to face coming back. 

"Is your Savjk giving fruit this late in the year." The O'ocan seller opened the conversation. Tiber felt weak with relief. 

He nodded stopped himself and answered, "Yes, but there are no new buds in the last ten-day." Sensitive to heat the Savjk only produced fruit in the warmer season, a cycle the reverse to the majority of vulcan fruiting plants. 

The clever alien eyes looked out at him. If you have not come about your pet plant, they said, then what do you mean to ask, human, there is no logic in waiting. "I couldn't find the answer in the archives." Tiber blurted, flinched and forced himself not to touch his hands together. He balled them into fists instead. 

The dark eyes flicked to the movement. "What can I tell you that the archives of the Vulcan Science Academy cannot?" 

"It's, ah, I mean why," he faltered. "Why do the students rhyme their insults?" It sounded so stupid to say it like that. Took an involuntary step back as if that would undo the entire mess of a conversation. This is why it was better not to talk to people. 

The O'ocan seller moved and Tiber glanced in sudden fear at the partition that separated them. But, it seemed the O'ocan seller was only packaging some of the fruit. Tiber did Tom's breathing as quietly as he could. He didn't relax yet, but the old vulcan was not watching him, focused on pouring O'ocan into a weighing basket. "You do not ask why the students speak insults." 

Tiber refrained from nodding again, he had thought that habit broken but apparently, he'd been wrong. "No, I know that already." The O'ocan seller did look at him now. Tiber didn't expand on his knowledge. 

"Youths will trade insults, it is illogical, but every generation does it. They know the insults are illogical, however, to show skill with language at the same time is a justification." The O'ocan seller sat the basket on the scale. "They pretend they are using the insult to display their knowledge of language and dynamic minds. Of course, they will mature and understand that such a justification is illogical too." Tiber was a little amused at his tone and grateful to have it laid out plainly, so when the O'ocan seller pointedly told him the weight Tiber jumped. He changed tack in a moment and scrambled for his credits and the bag he used to carry the fruit home. After a few clumsy movements he sorted out his limbs and it was only a little awkward to pay the old vulcan and scamper away.

 

\---

 

Most of those Tiber had seen in the VSA are vulcans over seventeen years, there are one or two younger and the ages go all the way up to ancient crinkled vulcans withered and strong. They don't stoop like humans do weighted with age. Some have canes or grav-supports but their shoulders retain their rigidity as long as they remain upright. Not all of the older ones are professors and researchers. Tiber has a couple scattered in his classes. He never asked, but he thinks they are not simply there to monitor the professor. 

In many ways, he wants to be like those old vulcans. Learning all through his life. He pictures himself stooped and ancient and hobbling through this familiar labyrinth. A faded memory of his own grandparents comes to him. Dry papery skin and the way his grandmother had to be reminded who he was. If he was still at the VSA when he was her age no doubt he'd get lost in the catacombs one day and become a mummified husk for some daredevil children to discover one day. 

The thought brightened his mood despite the morbidity. The bubble of laughter warmed him like the vulcan sun never did. With the laughter in his heart, Tiber ducked into the shade of the peristyle and stopped short. Laughter gave way to curiosity. He didn't know who the old vulcan was but as he watched the stooping figure he decided he was going to avoid all vulcans forever. 

The vulcan, of indeterminate sex, had reached a smooth hand under the stone bench beside them. Tiber stared curiosity giving way to awe and thence to cold reason. With that single hand, the vulcan lifted the side of the bench and moved it ninety degrees. That alone was simple vulcan weirdness. They did things like that. Adjusted the angle of an open door, and repositioned chairs in rooms. Tiber had never seen the point but assumed it was some cultural quirk after the archives had given him a blank. 

Tiber shook the stray thoughts off as the ancient vulcan hobbled away. He walked over to the bench and sat down. 

He'd tripped over one of these stone benches only a ten-day ago. It had been Tiber who had come off worse. In fact, he did not recall the bench shifting at all. He patted the bench and pushed his bag off. Pretending to crouch to retrieve it he put his own hands where the ancient vulcans had been and tried to lift it. 

Nothing. 

He strained muscles in his legs and stomach adding to his effort. Standing, Tiber lifted his bag and sat down again. He sat for several minutes bag on his lag and mind awhirl. 

It came down to a simple truth. Bench vs Tiber, result, loss to Tiber. Bench vs Vulcan, result, loss to Bench. The same logic inferred the result of Vulcan vs Tiber. It was a logic he did not mean to test. And unlike whatever had come over the elderly vulcan in moving the bench, Tiber's logic was sound. 

In the eight months, Tiber had been on Vulcan he had gained an understanding of the distinction between logic and 'vulcan logic'. The former was a sensible process of calculation. The latter was an arbitrary justification for the whims of a species who lived in a society where one couldn't blame one's emotions as drivers for actions. It was their stand-in for saying 'it felt right' or 'I wanted to'. Not that they couldn't use real logic, they did, often. It was simply that they didn't acknowledge the difference between using logic and excusing actions as 'logical'. He imagined they probably applied the 'logic' after the fact too. 

Of course, humans did the same thing. You acted and reacted only after did you really think about the path you took and the reasons behind it. Tiber used to only react, he'd become better at acting since he grew up. 

Now he could plan out actions into the future. It was still strange when not so long ago he'd only been able to plan for a week. And he hadn't been able to see any point in dreaming beyond that. It had been a miracle to even live a day longer. A week of plans had been arrogance in the extreme. Tiber had always been arrogant. It had served him well. 

 

\---

 

It was night, a few tenths before dawn. Tiber was in the big-triangle-rock courtyard when his good intentions to heed logic played out as good intentions do. Generally as a direct challenge to a pitiless universe. Or at least, that was Tiber's experience.

It was after his genetics lab and he had hours until his General Botany lectures would begin. The cool dark of the courtyard at night was welcoming, he had come here after classes a few times. And it seemed the preference had been noticed.

He didn't recognise the first of the vulcans to filter into the courtyard. He was busy, he had projects to do and couldn't always attend to the attitude of every vulcan who didn't come near him in the low lit courtyard. They stayed at the perimeter, if he'd looked at them for even a full second he might have at least recognised the general attitude they exuded. But he did not. 

This was how, when he looked up to see Rekan and several others, he realised his options were already narrowing. The children already had a guard at every exit. Fool that Tiber was he had not noticed the slow exit of his peers from the already unpopular courtyard. 

Unfortunately, the students seemed to have covered all the easy exits and Tiber was uncertain he was fast enough to make use of the more creative ones. He vowed to practice some parkour moves in the safety of his catacombs. He still remembered a little of Sam's practices. He would copy those and see what the archives could teach him. His thoughts turned quickly away from his current social problem to the more practical concerns of learning parkour. He'd need something to use as padding, he couldn't afford any breaks. 

As he wasted time thinking of currently impossible escape routes the vulcan children closed in. Rekan was not their leader. That was a vulcan boy who looked a little older than Rekan. Tiber didn't know his name. What he did know was that some of the children resented his place in the VSA. They saw him as an interloper taking the place of one of the many children who failed to make the cut to the VSA and had to return to the Higher Learning Centres. He looked up at this vulcan child and knew this was the case here. This one was older than many at the Higher Learning Centres perhaps as old as nineteen. No doubt he had failed entry to the VSA and personally resented Tiber for his scholarship. 

Anger over scarce resources was very familiar ground to Tiber. This particular situation had its novelties, however. There had been no vulcans on Tarsus. Not after the executions. Tiber had never needed to fight one for resources. As the children loomed Tiber weighed the likelihood of physical engagement and found the answer unsettling. He could distinctly remember how that old vulcan had lifted the stone bench. He had not thought to look up how the strength of young vulcans compared to their elders and scolded himself for the oversight. All he'd researched was the bone and muscle density of vulcans and their proportionally increased strength compared to humans. 

His padd was in hand. However, he doubted he'd have enough time to check that factoid now. And indeed he was quite right. The vulcan children were ready to begin.

Tiber was a little disappointed when they started with his ears. Of all things to choose! Yes, they were round, wow! They were also not too badly damaged by any concussive force. Quite functional really. He didn't bother to say this instead he kept his attention on all the pale faces in the gloom. They were not shifting closer to listen, this ambush had been planned with a little more discipline than the usual run of them.

Annoyed with Tiber's inattention the leader stepped closer, and Tiber obliged him by turning his gaze back up to him. "Yes, my ears are round, you are able to perceive objects at close range," Tiber replied. He considered offering his congratulations but had found sarcasm to be wasted on a vulcan audience. Still, it might be amusing to complement them into backing down. They were children, it might work. 

"No, as you say, I do not use decimal places in conversation." He told the lackey to the left as his imprecise use of the word 'close' elicited a remark on his very real inability to visually measure distances to three decimal places without tools. It was all too easy to reply to them. They seldom said anything he couldn't ignore. He'd been to a terran primary school. He'd probably heard far better insults there. 

His eyes strayed to the exits. New faces dipped briefly into view and were gone. He recognised one of them. No help from that quarter. His peers were unlikely to intervene. Not on his behalf anyway.

Distracted with keeping everyone in the courtyard in view, it was perhaps easy to understand why he failed to anticipate what the child would do next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN 1// He thinks 'arrogant' and he was or is still, but the quality he is thinking of is probably more self-possession, creativity in thinking of effective plans and hope.  
> AN 2// Tiber uses 'children' to mean anyone not self-dependent. I.E. anyone who still has parents.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Escalation by others and escalation in defence - retreat - Mus's vulcan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there is a bit of a misunderstanding to start off with - the poor thing doesn't know his strength - then there are some non-cannibalism memories from Tarsus. I really did try to make them traumatic, but maybe missed the mark? Read and let me know.

Escalation by others and escalation in defence - retreat - Mus's vulcan

 

\---

 

His arm was seized in the lead child's grip. The vulcan had a foot of height on him, which was more than enough by itself. Of course, that was the least of it, the vulcan was denser by about three hundred percent and it showed. He had no choice. Tiber moved with the grip as his arm was pulled away, cursing himself.

How could he have let himself get so comfortable? He had not thought they would escalate to physical violence. And he was wrong. True, none of his peers had. And as yet the children at the Higher Learning Centre had only speculated. Loudly. In the way, children did when bluffing. He'd been too comfortable. Foolish. Stupid. Arrogant. 

He knew not to let an enemy get a grip on you. Had he forgotten everything? Tiber urgently suppressed the urge to squirm free. The older boy's grip needed no testing, it was already too tight. His hand tingled as the child cut off blood to his extremities. That would have been useful, he thought no longer listening to the vulcan children. He'd improvised tourniquets before and knew a good one when he felt it. �  
And what had happened to the taboo on touching? Tiber wondered then in an instant wasn't wondering anything.

The white-hot pain of his radius giving out stabbed urgent into his brain. 

His teeth locked together. Eyes watered. 

He'd never had it set right. 

And was paying for it now. 

Probably not a neat break. Tiber could almost visualise the weak spot splintering under applied torque. 

Malnutrition probably had played a part too. Too slow to move. 

Infuriated with Tiber's inattention the vulcan child had given his arm a vicious twist. Too fast for Tiber to move with. He guessed the child didn't even realise what he'd done. The feel of bone snapping between fingers was likely not a sensation vegetarian vulcans often experienced. 

Cold to his marrow for the first time since he'd stepped onto this hellish planet returned his gaze to the child that held his arm. He said something, lips numb with the cold, but there was a clear path to take. Sweat ran down his face. He held the vulcan child's dark eyes with his. 

His undamaged left hand moved up and he flicked the vulcan on his right eye psi point. 

Taboo, yes. But the vulcan child had broken taboo first and his arm into the bargain. 

The older boy startled reeling back and releasing Tiber's arm. Pain shook through him as his arm swung to his side. A flush suffused the vulcan's face darkening his cheeks in the gloom. Tiber stepped forward because once you started it was best to finish than back down. He couldn't think slowly enough to form sentences in Golic-Vuhlkansu. He raised his good left hand again. And the leader stepped back, rapidly. It was enough, they scattered. Easy.

However, they were not much cowed and Tiber regretted that but didn't have enough resilience to finish the job. He needed to lick his wounds and re-group himself. He'd see them again. They had promised it with their parting insults. 

 

\---

 

The throbbing of his arm told him it had not been an 'easy' encounter. It hung limply by his side and Tiber stared at it. 

The cold that had numbed everything was fading. A curl of dread rose from his belly. Fast as a snake it uncoiled and reached up to strangle him. Overlaying his arm was 'Leazer's and the smell of it filled his nostrils. He could see it. How her arm had shown bone and his careful stitching. The poultices they had guessed at. And oh! The smell it had made as it began to rot. How they had tried to clean it with hot water. It had been unstoppable, but they had hoped and Tiber he'd risked them all to steal medicine. 

He shuddered the motion rocking his arm with painful spikes of pain. He remembered how 'Leazar had screamed in her delirium, but hadn't made a sound as they had cut her arm off. The medicine doing too little. Too late. 

The rot was in her and she had vomited bile and worse over the floor of their cave, the stolen blankets had been soaked in it. For weeks the cave had reeked with her fluids. Perhaps it had never stopped. The overpowering smell of her filled his nose and mouth and he could still taste it. Pungent in his nose and sweet on the back of his tongue. His gorge rose. 

He'd failed her. If he'd stolen the medicine sooner she might have kept the arm and if he had had the courage to cut it off she might have kept her life.

She never would have been hurt if he'd not insisted on them scouting. Then to stand by healthy and useless as she fell into blood rotten fever. He could feel the give of flesh as he had cut off the arm. The resistance of bone to the saw. He gasped in thin air. The slide of the blade into her throat. To end it. A waste of resources. Tiber retched, swayed and stumbled. 

He caught his good left arm on the big-triangle-rock. Leaning against it for a moment. Solid and cool in the night. Tiber pressed it all back. He breathed in the way Tom had taught him. Took in the night air of the courtyard. UV sterile air and the sand polished rock under his hand. He was here not there. In the courtyard, he'd named for its stupid central rock. 

He was calm. He could think. Staring up at the sky, Tiber slowly lifted his right arm to lie across his chest. Awkwardly he curled his right hand over his left shoulder. It would be best. Drawing his left hand across the solidity of the rock Tiber moved around it to his discarded padd and the bag near it. 

Kneeling to gather his things one handed, Tiber hesitated. Sweat soaked knees picking up the usual coating of sand. Perhaps this was not the best way. 

It was most comfortable to carry his arm like this. Protected against his chest. It would prevent him from brushing it into anything until he got somewhere safe. But where? And he looked down at the arm he was holding to his chest. It was far too obvious that he was hurt. He couldn't walk through the city like this. People would notice.

Tiber put his left hand on the rock again. He couldn't be noticed. Tarsus had been very firm about that lesson.

 

\---

 

He used the rock to stand up and checked the courtyard to make sure he was still safe. It was empty. Silent. Unable to control the way his mouth pulled down Tiber looked back at the arm he cradled. It was problematic, he thought dizzily. 

He considered the route home, there were plenty of less crowded ways to take, but no route was best. All of them passed some busy crossroad or street at some point. At this time of night, the city was as crowded as ever. He wished, momentarily for it to be midday, but it wasn't. Wishing wouldn't make the sun rise. The city was awake and busy in the cool of night. And he would have classes between now and midday so he could not hide in the VSA. 

He could go anyway. He could hold his arm and hope no one decided to be the interested bystander. Or an interested attacker. Or he could go to the office, here at the VSA and tell them what had happened. The thought brought a grim little smile to his face, he let it sit there in defiance to his usual blankness.

No. He would not go to the VSA. He would not report this. He needed to stay below suspicion. It was too soon to test his forged background. 

So he had to get home to the safety of the catacombs and there he could splint it and think. There were still hours until he needed to be in class again. 

If he let his arm hang down he ran the risk of bumping it into anything. His arm wasn't very mobile like this and he was sure he wouldn't be able to dodge if he misjudged an obstacle or when people passed by. So, perhaps it was better to cradle his arm and take the risk of being accosted by good-doers? Did Vulcan have such people? Like Old Mr Smith who used to ask about his bruises because his mind was too far gone to remember what Frank was and keep quiet like a proper neighbour.

He decided to try letting his arm hang. Feeling puppet like Tiber carefully lowered his right arm and was immediately grateful he was next to the big triangle rock. Not good. Not a good position. No. 

With a little nauseating trial, Tiber found it was best if he held it to his stomach with his left hand cradling it. It was not subtle, especially with his good left hand supporting the break. 

He had to free his left hand to pack his padd into his bag. Carefully resting his right forearm on his belly he knelt again and one-handed wiggled his padd into the bag. He knew he was moving too slowly, but couldn't bring himself to move faster. There could not be any immediate danger, the courtyard was empty, he was on Vulcan, he wasn't back there. 

Putting on the pack over his right arm was slow and painful, but once it was on he could even tuck his fingers into the left strap. It made a crude sling. 

Leaning on the rock he did the breathing again. Standing had been hard. Eyes closed to count he tried to think if he had decided on a route home. He resisted the urge to rub at his eyes. 

Then his arm was caught. His half-raised arm. He jerked, eyes springing open.

The vulcan had his uninjured arm. His good arm. 

The vulcan pulled and Tiber stumbled after him. Heart in his throat and ready to beg. He couldn't afford both arms. He couldn't. He choked as he tried to breath and beg. Dizzy with the rush of fear Tiber struggled to keep his footing. That made the fear double because if he fell his left arm might break too. 

The vulcan stopped. Tiber gasped and tried to say something. Vulcan's weren't human, if he could just force something past the block in his throat he'd be able to reason with the vulcan. If he could just think of a reason why he should get to keep his left arm.

To Tiber's horror, the vulcan turned to him and placed his other hand on Tiber's arm. This finally galvanised Tiber to action. He drew his right arm painfully back working his fingers out from the trapping strap. The vulcan placed the back of Tiber's hand on his own side and pressed his elbow down pinning his hand in place. Relief surged. Instead of damaging his right arm further Tiber could now claw his the fingers of his left hand into the joint dragging him. The course of action was clear. But he did not claw the vulcan. 

As he followed along, dragged just as firmly by this novel grip, Tiber looked at the back of the vulcan's head. Connections broken in his terror had leapt to recognition in his moment of relief. It was Mus's vulcan. His vulcan. The weird one with the Sehlat. 

He let his fingers curl around the vulcan's elbow. Instantly the pinning pressure eased. Mus's vulcan did not look back or falter his stride. Tiber thought of Mus and let this weird vulcan lead the way north.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Passcodes - Mus - The tale of I'Chaya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I give you Mus, tada.

Passcodes - Mus - The tale of I'Chaya

 

\---

 

Fingers curled into the crook of the vulcan's elbow Tiber stood a step behind him on the bus. His head was clearer now and a slightly muddled stocktake of his predicament was not encouraging. Moreover, he was awfully aware that the other passengers were noticing him. He felt itchy in his skin. But he couldn't summon up the motivation to move. Just thinking of running made his head spin. Hunching his shoulders further Tiber tried to fade from all notice. But the movement made the bag shift and the movement of the straps pulled on his right hand. Tiber lost all motivation to escape the bus. 

The throbbing in his right forearm was more than enough to make apathy a virtue. And stillness a greater one Tiber decided as he tried not to sway with the movement of the bus. The pain seemed like it was in the pumping of his blood. As the dread of 'Leazar's fate tried to engulf him Tiber dimly watched his knuckles turn white against the cloth of the vulcan's elbow. He didn't turn. Tiber relaxed, the tension bleeding from shoulders and spreading to his hand. With the momentary fear gone, his focus was dragged inevitably back to the pain. 

It seemed to be too hot. Like every beat of his heart ignited his blood. It made him regret having nerve endings. He knew his arm was injured, so why couldn't the break stop sending pain signals? He was going to get it mended. Or. Tiber looked at the side of the vulcan's head. Possibly going to get it mended, he clarified. 

He was not so gullible. And yet here he was. He didn't pull his hand away. 

True, the vulcan had shown himself capable of forcing Tiber to comply, but he had not done any damage. Tiber didn't even have a bruise forming on his left arm and the other students often left bruises if they knocked into him. Not that his peers often did knock into him. They were practically religious about not-touching-the-human. Which meant that this vulcan had done some research on human anatomy. That should count against him, but Tiber didn't find the weird vulcan at all alarming. Which was why he was alarmed. 

Feeling ridiculous at his own illogic Tiber turned his gaze to the windows. Glimpsing the lamplit shapes of building facades. The bus, one he had taken before, was on the expected route. His exploration of the city proving its use. He knew exactly where he was, and watching the familiar buildings pass by, took relief in planning routes home. 

They were in the north of the city but not far from the VSA. Where Tiber had first discovered the old city walls and later followed their repurposed remains with the aid of an old city map. This part of the city was within the third expansion. Practically ancient. The old bones of the city still showed through here. Vulcan's didn't believe in keeping the old, not if what was new proved better. But the layout was one thing that was harder to change than the architecture of the buildings. And here and there old stone was in evidence instead of the more durable synthetic materials. 

The bus glided to a silent halt. Tiber felt the tug on his hand and turned to his vulcan. He was moving. He scrambled, not letting go of the elbow. Even though it would have been easier to move if he did. 

In the gloomy street lamps of the city Tiber glanced about. He didn't even need to concentrate on it. Just as well with the way his throbbing arm punctuated every thought. There was an alley he could duck into, run south back to his garden and the safety of seclusion. If he could run.

His eyes on the alley Tiber didn't notice the vulcan looking at him until the movement of his head turning away caught his eye. Tiber put a hold on his thoughts of retreat. With the pain taking up almost every coherent second he couldn't compute multiple ideas. He focused his diminished attention on this new thought. They were not moving. They were still standing at the shelter which protected people waiting from the wind and sun - when it was daytime anyway. His arm throbbed. Tiber considered what might happen if he let go of the vulcan's elbow. 

Then he wondered what would happen if he didn't. It was hard to think with the throbbing interrupting any coherent thought. There were too many unknowns. Too many possibilities. 

On top of everything else, Tiber had meant to eat the remaining half of the protein bar he had in his pack. He hadn't had hunger pangs since the famine, but missing meals made him shaky. There hadn't been enough time for symptoms to develop but standing at that bus station with stars above and crowds of vulcans going about their routines, Tiber felt dizzy with it all. It was probably psychosomatic, or something. Amy had mentioned several of the kids had something similar. If he could just make his arm stop throbbing he'd be able to think straight. Be able to remember what she had said the kids' doctors had said. 

Tiber's arm interrupted his thoughts and he abruptly wished for it to stop. Just stop. He needed to be able to think. His vulcan stepped out into the street. Startled Tiber followed. 

They wound their way through the pedestrians, buses and the odd private transport. Or rather the vulcan did. Tiber let him lead, his concentration going to his arm and the pressing urge to scratch at the break. He wasn't going to touch it because that would be stupid, but his brain was insisting that if he rubbed at the proximal end of his forearm it would stop the pain signals. 

Tiber might be fool enough to follow a weird vulcan through the city, but he wasn't so stupid as to touch his arm. It was safe in his makeshift sling. He firmly told himself not to even look at the sleeve that covered it. 

His vulcan guide lead them into an area of housing Tiber had not yet explored. It was close to the desert side wall. The majority of expansion in Regol being to the north and south. Especially to the south as the cliffs of Gol limited space to the north. Whereas the ground to the south sloped more gently down from the plateau. Until it turned into the Khaf Rise, of course, but that chain of mountains was far enough south that the city didn't even brush the foothills.

Sock stopped at one of the doors that studded the walls framing both sides of the street. They were almost at the Eastern wall. With the ease of routine, the vulcan flicked open a cover and pressed an eleven digit code into the pad. Tiber watched him do it. His vulcan had to be a little soft in the head because he'd done absolutely nothing to conceal the code from Tiber. His growing agitation eased. The door clicked and they entered the house. Or rather they entered a garden.

Most vulcan houses, the traditional sort and most were, had a small gap between the exterior wall and the house. All the houses Tiber had visited during his less than fruitful search for a house had kept the strip of ground bare or covered in coloured stones. This house had planted it with creepers that edged up the walls, and cacti that thrust spikes into the air, and succulents which lurked under everything. Tiber stared, enchanted. He ran his eyes over each plant. A few of them were edible and most of the succulents and cacti were good sources of clean water. There were four plants he didn't even recognise. 

The click of another cover being opened drew his attention back just in time to see all twelve digits entered into this pad. Again without covering them from Tiber's interested gaze. Was it an error, did his vulcan not think he could retain twenty three digits in his memory? Or perhaps he thought, the vulcan was lulling him into a false sense of security and this was all a ruse to get Tiber here and his vulcan had set up the ambush so that Tiber's arm would be broken and he'd planned to take advantage of his shock. Tiber's heart began to beat fast and his arm throbbed in time with it. 

The door behind him was closed and he couldn't get out that way. It had a pad on this side too. He'd need his good hand to open it. If the exit code was the same as the entry code. His choices were forward or through the cacti garden. The garden looked like it opened up around the side of the house. But he'd been in traditional houses before, they had walls on all sides. He couldn't climb with his right arm broken. 

So out of options, he stepped forward as the vulcan eased the door open.

 

\---

 

He had seen the inside of vulcan houses before, too. All of them set up for the viewing of potential buyers. They had not been lived in. Or not seemed like it. His frantic gaze took in the entry and the room beyond in one swift pass and his first thought was that this place was lived in. A very calming thought. It had something much more alive than any of the houses he'd been inside. It felt like a home. And with that thought, Tiber's anxiety was overruled by curiosity. First the plants in the strip, and now something about the inside. 

The weird vulcan had a weird house. As they crossed into a large open room his eyes wandered across it trying to pick out what had set him at ease. 

A closet half open was stuffed with outdoor coats and a rack below for shoes. Neat pairs in rows punctuated with empty gaps. His vulcan didn't pause to remove his shoes or make Tiber take his off. Sensible, as Tiber was used to having two hands to work with. He didn't dwell on his arm, attention swinging back to the room. There was the faint smell of cooking spices and something sharp that took Tiber a moment to designate as furniture polish. Probably, it was not a very familiar smell. There was a shelf with a neatly placed dish that held a scrum of key cards, stray credits, a loose pen, some thread, a dried flower. The tangle the dish held strangely at odds with its precision placement. 

The short hall opened into the main room which had great doors leading out into the garden. He couldn't make out any detail in the darkly shadowed vulcan night. He imagined the room must be bright and airy during the day. Now, as lights came on, it had a cosy feel. Almost like his cave, but with more luxuries. 

In front of the garden doors, there was a sunken area of sofas. Tiber didn't know the vulcan word, but they were sofa-like and so the terran word would do. These seemed to be their destination. And as Tiber stepped down into the sunken floor with care not to jar his arm a great shape moved in the gloom vulcans called lighting. 

Tiber stepped ahead of his vulcan for the first time and just as eagerly Mus rose to greet them. He didn't even get to pet Mus. His vulcan warded the sehlat off and sat Tiber on one sofa. Only when Tiber's right side was protected by the arm of the sofa did Mus's vulcan allow the sehlat to greet Tiber. Thrusting a huge head on the cushion to Tiber's left Mus arranged limbs comfortably on the floor. The huge creature could lounge with the best of them. With his free left hand, Tiber touched the strange alien fur and Mus chuffed over his lap. 

"Good girl. Stay here, I will be back." While the first comment was definitely directed at the sehlat, Tiber was uncertain who the last was for. However, with his left hand already tangled in the long stands on Mus's neck, he certainly wasn't moving. Mus was firmly planted. Tiber found he didn't mind. It was probably the shock.

The vulcan disappeared into the depths of the house and Tiber bent over to press his face to Mus's broad head. With his vulcan gone he didn't have the welcome distraction of anxiously watching the other for signs of violence. The urge to do something with his broken arm conflicted with the equally strong urge not to move or touch it in any way. He breathed in the strange sehlat scent and grappled for balance. 

He could hear footsteps above and focused on them. He should be wondering what the vulcan was doing up there, but he found it too difficult a task and combed his good hand through the wiry fur instead. 

After a little, he had to do something. His throbbing arm was insistent and he couldn't resist the need to act anymore. Sitting up a little he eased his hand out of the straps of his bag and swung it to his left. It tucked between Mus's nose, his side and the back of the sofa. He kept a loop over his left arm, just in case he needed to leave. Though if he was in a hurry he knew better than to try to carry a bag. Bags made an excellent place for pursuers to grab on. He glanced around again, less interested in the detail of real paper books and a vase of terran sunflowers, he was focused on exits. 

From his seat the garden doors were closest, they were unlocked too, but the lock looked like it could be engaged remotely. So he'd need to be fast. There was a solid looking side table by the far sofa, so he might be able to use that to break the glass - if it was not very high-security glass. Nothing would be worse than wasting time in the attempt only to have the side table bounce back at him. He peered through the insufficient lighting. There were no makers marks that he could see. It was probably best to assume it was high-security glass and the table wasn't a good idea.

There were other exits though. Windows behind him in what looked like a dining area. And beyond that the beginnings of a kitchen. The windows looked like they might be easily opened from within. Tiber counted the routes. Four, excluding the front door. Two realistic, two iffy. Not awful odds. 

His vague attention on the footsteps drew him back. They had ceased and he could almost imagine he heard the vulcan coming downstairs. Tiber levered himself back upright and craned his head around. 

 

\---

 

Opening the door and stepping back into the main room, the vulcan's dark eyes slid between Mus and Tiber. Mus was a spectacle of ease, huge body draped over floor, sofa and almost over Tiber. The human with the sehlat's muzzle resting half on his lap was appropriately grateful that the creatures didn't drool. One of their many advantages. His favourite was one he'd only realised after the awkward desert meeting. 

He wasn't allergic. At all. He appeared to be able to stroke the sehlat without his immune system staging a coup. 

Tiber was distracted from appreciating the sehlat when he noticed what the vulcan was carrying into the room. A re-gen. It looked like a good one with an osteogenic stimulator. What Tiber would have given for such a thing. He swallowed on the bitterness. What had he not already given? None of it had won him a re-gen. And even if it had, such a thing would not have saved them. Re-gens couldn't feed people. They might have been worse off with one. Tiber hated himself for it, but if they could have saved those he lost to sickness and soured bones then they all would have starved to death. It had been too close as it was. The pragmatic thought did not help. 

"Good girl, Mus." The vulcan set down the re-gen and Tiber realised how much thought the vulcan had put into his placement. The small table beside the sofa didn't require Tiber move from his position, hemmed in on one side by the sehlat and on the other by the low arm of the sofa. A sehlat coloured sofa. Tiber's ministrations had already combed out loose fur, and it lay camouflaged on the pale fabric. Very practical of Mus's vulcan.

The vulcan began to set up the re-gen. Tiber squirmed and apologised to Mus when his hand formed a fist. The vulcan flicked eyes from Mus to Tiber and to the loose fist his right hand had formed. He couldn't make it anymore firm. He tried to relax both his hands. 

"Mus is the granddaughter of the sehlat who was my companion as a child. I'Chaya was my father's companion and was seventy three terran years old when he died in 2237." Tiber stared at the vulcan and momentarily forgot about the re-gen. His attention flicked back to the device as Mus's vulcan switched it on. It hummed. Not ominously, but in the mind-destroying way all medical equipment hummed. Incessantly, and it had only just started.

"I made a logical error and decided to take my ordeal, the kahs-wan, early. I had decided it was logical and was mistaken. I'Chaya was very loyal and when I ordered him not to follow me he disobeyed." As the re-gen hummed into readiness it was drowned out by the beginning of the tale the vulcan, Spock, as he identified himself, spun. 

The vulcan coming of age was not something Tiber had studied so he grew curious as Spock spoke of the almost ritualistic nature of it. The chants he spoke of singing, traditional songs vulcan children were taught just for their kahs-wan. Then there was the Forge. Tiber had flown over parts of it in his exploration of the vulcan cities and historical sites. Flying over did not count, and Tiber had not done more than stand on its edge. 

Spock called it merely hot and Tiber scoffed at that, but Spock also spoke of how he had survived. The roots of plants called Re'Jerm that lay dormant for five sixths of the year blooming only in the coldest period, and how Spock had dug them up for the bitter water that they could give. Tiber listened and as he did Spock donned gloves and lifted his broken arm into the re-gen's cradle. The pain of it distracted Tiber from Spock's account of another plant he stripped the stalks off of to chew. 

The whirring of the re-gen picked up as the osteogenic stimulator kicked in. Tiber could see the display and the fracture in his radius. As he watched denser alien bones entered the frame and gripped his arm. Tiber desperately focused on the sudden appearance of a le-matya pack on the tenth day of Spock's tale. His ears rang with white noise as Spock replaced the bone, the story faltering for a moment. As the ringing subsided Spock spoke again. And Tiber unclenched his left hand from Mus's fur again. The sehlat, having patiently endured Tiber's unconscious reaction, chuffed at him. Tiber resumed combing her fur, a little less steady than before. 

"I'Chaya had moved between the pack and me. I told him that we should climb the rise and get on top of the boulders from there we could fend them off. However, I'Chaya did not heed this logic." Tiber blinked a cold sweat from his eyes and calmed his breathing. In the story, I'Chaya commenced battle. The first le-matya fell quickly to I'Chaya's battle experience, however, "they were not discouraged by the death of their pack-mate. The smell of the blood made them more frenzied.

"I repeated to I'Chaya that we should retreat, and found stones to throw when I'Chaya disobeyed to push his own attack." Spock's tone as he spoke was one of quiet reflection ill-suited to the pace of the battle he described. His tone mirrored his movements as he altered settings on the re-gen. The odd non-sensation of the re-gen working was an unrelenting grind on his nerves. A counterpoint to the smooth story being woven.

As anything was better than focusing on the osteogenic stimulation Tiber tried to throw his mind into the story. "I'Chaya sank his teeth into the third le-matya, but as it fell I'Chaya did not withdraw correctly. The stress on his tooth caused it to snap. It was not unexpected, the tooth had been weakened by a chip made five years before." And the tide of the battle turned. 

The le-matya pack had surrounded I'Chaya while he killed their third member. Now they attacked from multiple directions unbothered by the stones young Spock struck them with. "I stopped to pick up more stones and drew the attention of one of the pack. With only three to counter I'Chaya dealt better, but the wound in his left foreleg was deeper than I had calculated at the time." 

Tiber flexed his hand, the itching had built until he'd moved without thinking. The re-gen beeped in protest. Tiber stilled. Then froze as Spock pressed a single gloved finger down on his wrist. His cool gloved digit was icy against Tiber's skin above his sleeve. For the first time, Tiber noticed how worn the shirt was. He should do something about the tattered cuff. 

"I threw the stones I had at the le-matya which prevented it from approaching me for thirty eight seconds." Tiber watched the screen where the long vulcan bones reached into the frame to pin his shorter, less dense bones. The radius already looked pretty normal. The osteogenic stimulator in the re-gen was a good one. "I'Chaya attempted to come to my aid. This allowed the le-matya closer than was wise and I-Chaya fell on top of the forth le-matya. This saved me, but I'Chaya was grievously injured. The le-matya set upon him and I picked up more stones to throw trying to force them away from him as he could no longer move easily."

Tiber was torn between sympathy for the brave I'Chaya and the itching in his arm. The vulcan kept him from moving the arm for relief, and Tiber was determined not to let his expressionless mask fall yet again. 

Spock started adjusting the settings on the re-gen with his free hand. In the tale, a group of mounted vulcans appeared over the ridge. Too late, as all rescues are, to save one. I'Chaya was too injured for the party of vulcans to heal with the equipment they carried. They could call for a medical ship, but I'Chaya would not keep his left foreleg and the elder vulcans, cousins to Spock, advised that the injuries and the le-matya's poison were not likely to be recovered from. "It seemed like a betray of I'Chaya's efforts to save me to agree to euthanasia," Spock admitted and Tiber felt the answering wench in his soul. He knew what it was to have that decision. 

"I asked my cousin to lead the others away as I wished to say goodbye to I'Chaya privately. They left a short distance and, after telling I'Chaya why, I shot him." Spock stopped speaking and the silence seemed to amplify the old grief of the moment. It must have been years ago. Did grief never fade? Tiber's thoughts flinched away from Winona. Surely it must, other people seemed to see the world without the shadows of constant regret. 

 

\---

 

It was the logical choice to kill I'Chaya. Tiber was glad Spock didn't phrase it like that though. He couldn't have borne it. 

It was bad enough an ending. Throwing his mind back more than a year now. To the day Starfleet arrived. Saviours from the sky. Tiber found now that his hatred had cool that he didn't resent Starfleet. They had come. They had rescued Tiber and his children. Those children that remained. 

It wasn't logical to blame Starfleet. And he didn't blame them. He didn't resent them. They had brought medicine and doctors, food and replicators, blankets and beds. 

Tiber touched that faded anger now and found it cool. He didn't hate Starfleet. He just didn't forgive them. Wouldn't forgive them. Because they had only saved seventeen of his children when they might have saved the other thirty. Not even half. How could he forgive that? When all he had done had not been enough? When they had swooped in like the angels from Tom's religion? Dealing out vengeance to the wicked and succour to the good. But all too late. 

Tom had called them an answer to their prayers. It was Tom who called them angels. He'd held onto his faith or had more of it to give. Tiber hadn't so much of that resource. He'd hated them for not coming sooner. For not really being Tom's prayer summoned angels. For being late. For not saving him. 

But he had lived. And so had seventeen of his children. So he continued to live. And the hatred had faded to this strange cool coil, like an element heated until it broke leaving only useless scrap metal. Just junk taking up space. 

Mus roused and chuffed at him. She chuffed again when he only looked at her. He'd stopped the rhythmic combing of her wiry fur. 

"Sorry, Mus." He resumed his stroking and realised that the vulcan had also paused, but it was a natural pause in the story. 

Spock continued, "My cousin Selek allowed me to ride with him. I had travelled enough during my attempt at kahs-wan that it took only a day of travelling to return to my cousin's home. I'Chaya's body had been collected and presented to my father who awaited us at the home of my cousin. I had completes the kahs-wan and was of age, all that was left was to face the consequences of I'Chaya's death." Spock skipped over the details of the scolding he had received. 

Losing interest in the story Tiber realised he was hungry. Re-generating tissue did, generally, leave most species feeling depleted and hungry. Tiber felt the light-headedness of low blood sugar growing as the pain from his arm had faded to a dull itching. Even the itching was less now. His bones on the re-gen's screen looked pretty normal. Tiber hadn't seen any sort of completion marker and wondered how you could tell when the bones were done. As if it were like some high-tech oven and not an osteogenic stimulator.

"Mus is much like her grandfather, she too is very loyal." The vulcan finished and lifted away the finger pinning Tiber's wrist to the re-gen. For half a second Tiber wondered if he was meant to keep his arm in the re-gen or not. He did not want half cooked bones. Then the re-gen beeped in a conclusive manner and decided the matter for him. He was free. The re-gen hummed a few notes and blinked lights then the screen stopped showing the image of his arm and went to a complicated looking report. Tiber scanned the text but didn't know most of the terms. He guessed at the meanings of a few but was unable to piece it all together. 

Giving up on the readout Tiber reclaimed his arm and inspected it. It seemed arm shaped, the swelling which had begun around his wrist was gone. So too was the bruise on his elbow from bumping it into a jutting bit of stone in the entrance to his room the day before. Gingerly he poked at where the break had been, but everything in his forearm seemed painless. He formed a fist, touched fingers together, twisted his wrist. Seemed functional. 

"No lingering sore spots, no dull nerves." He told the vulcan. Then belatedly noticed it was the first thing he'd said to Spock. Perhaps he was the weird one. 

Spock did not seem inclined to pass any commentary on the matter. His hands busy about packing up the re-gen he told Tiber, "I have calibrated it to your metabolism, it should not take so long to set up next time you use it." Which seemed to be an invitation to use it. Tiber wasn't going to think about that now. The vulcan stood, re-gen in hand and when to the corridor he'd that lead upstairs. "Mus, see our guest to the door."

When Spock was out of sight Tiber looked down at Mus. She chuffed at him then slowly raised her bulk into a languorous stretch. At the end of it she stood towering over Tiber. When he did not follow her example she chuffed and nudged him. Tiber smiled at her. He was quite willing to obey this domineering sehlat and let her usher him to the front door. A little overwrought from the relief of pain and lightheaded from low blood sugar Tiber kissed her nose. Only then did he leave the warm sehlat, the cosy rooms and Spock behind.


End file.
